Sopranos blogging

Once the final credits rolls Sunday night to end “The Sopranos,” I immediately joined the blog on the Dallas Morning News (Over the Top) and contributed to the discussion – split 50-50 about liking the open-ended, non-conclusion. Those who didn’t like it felt strongly that there should have been closure. Others like me felt more than satisfied with the surprise.
The following are my submissions – go to dallasnews.com and click on entertainment/Over the Top to read the entire amount of entries from last night. I’m sure there will be more:

I was ready to blow up Time Warner Cable! I thought the ending was interrupted until I realized David Chase WANTED it that way.
All along, what you THINK is going to happen usually doesn’t, and the ending is left up to you. However, that might have been the most foreboding conclusion ever on TV.
Pure unadultered genius.
Posted June 10, 2007 09:11 p.m.

Most viewers want nice and neat closure to their shows but this show has always been different. Life usually doesn’t HAVE closure – just recurring themes and problems. Tony was upset about future indictments even though he knew, one day, they would come. Yes, the song sang “Life, it goes on and on and on...”
By the way, brilliant choices of music tonight from an all-time Dylan classic (“It’s Alright Ma”) that was speaking to two teens some 40 years after it was recorded and a grand oldie, “You Keep Me Hanging On” by the Vanilla Fudge.
Perhaps we should have listened closer at the start to see how it would end.
Posted June 10, 2007 09:25 p.m.

Nothing ever committed to film for this show answered questions without posing even more. In the end, a show about a mob family with the leader who has real family issues finished with Tony surrounded by his family. All that was missing was the collection of ducks.The sadness that Tony felt toward Uncle Junior, where he wanted to deposit more rage, simply turned into resignation – not unlike the knowledge that legal troubles were coming – was beautifully done. He wanted to do the right thing for Bobby’s children but still remembered that Janice was a bloodsucking leech.
Yes, I have one eye on the DVR clock and one eye on Meadow’s inability to parallel park (do we all have that problem?).
Like a good book, David Chase is letting everyone use their imagination for the next moment. Total genius.
And if you think the Tonys, or Tony Parker are more interesting than Tony Soprano, you should be watching junk like “Two and A Half Men” for your concept of quality TV.
Posted June 10, 2007 09:48 p.m.

The DMN movie critic, knowing that even what’s on Tony’s TV matters in the context of things, wondered about “The Twilight Zone” episode shown. I helped answer, sort of.

The episode, aired May 23, 1963, was called “The Bard,” starring the funny Jack Weston and a real young Burt Reynolds.
From idmb:com:
“Failing playwright Julius Moomer (Jack Weston) conjures up the spirit of Shakespeare (John Williams) to appear in the present in his former earthly form. The bewildered Bard reluctantly agrees to write plays for the inept Moomer who quickly sends them (under his own name) to Broadway Producers. Soon, Moomer is the toast of the town and getting rich in the process. Alas, his fame and fortune are short-lived when he mistakenly invites the Bard to see the production of one his plays in-person. Naturally, Shakespeare is taken aback by the Method acting he witnesses, and particularly by the artificial performance of one Rocky Roads (a young Burt Reynolds). Method-acting Rocky needs “motivation” for one scene and can’t seem to find it --- until the Bard provides it for him by sending him flying through a wall with a punch to the nose.
Moomer is forced to return the indignant Bard back into the past. But he’s far from finished, however, as he now conjures up Lincoln, Washington, Napoleon ... etc. etc. for more creative work.”
Does that give you any clues?

“Rome” had a nice and neat ending. Of course, it had history on its side.“Deadwood” did not have a real ending because it will return as a two-hour movie. Maybe.“Carnivale” has an ending but left lots of room for another season which didn’t happen.Regular network TV like tidy endings. BUT ... it’s not TV ...
IT’S HBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Remember that.
Also wasn’t the collage about saying goodbye to “The Sopranos” well done?
Posted June 10, 2007 10:06 p.m.

Only the immediate family knew where it was having dinner and it was a last-minute decision. So who would have been sent there to do any whacking? Besides, as we have ALL learned, some thing about the “code” are sacred and you don’t touch family members.
Besides, Tony had made a deal with the NYC guys (although I might have missed a wonderful pearl of wisdom from Little Carmine). Phil was the price to be paid for Bobby. Maybe Tony needs to hire the law firm of Binder & Binder because “you have enough to worry about.”
You know why “The Sopranos” is greatness? Because no one blogged all night about “Six Feet Under” or “NYPD Blue” or “Hill Street Blues.”
Posted June 10, 2007 10:20 p.m.

Frankly, as a retired journalist and overall news pjunkie, I am now officially BORED-er out by immigration talk and balk. Enough of this bullshit adn let's move to something else.
ALL sides are disingenuous - one side cannot accept reality (you can't deport 12-20 million people), the other cannot accept how many people feel (you can't let more people cross illegally) and the current administration is quite simply too impotent to affect anything in Congress.
It is NO coincidence that the Republicans staged this mini-coup against the White House-supported bill while the President was at G8. His tummy will hurt more when he returns and has no position to stand upon. At least in this final year, Clinton was relevant; Bush, clearly, is NOT!
And he won't spend any veto savings on immigration because, deep down, he doesn't believe in it. He's too beholden to businesses who really, REALLY don't want to change the status quo (no enforcement, no penalties, make money off these workers).
And NO one trusts the current Justice Department to begin massive enforcement, which is where it needs to happen - not Homeland Security (who can't stop one guy with TB from crossing the Canadian border).
When he leaves office, Bush will only have the support of the ultra-crazies and half his family ... and the latter is in doubt.

Someone has a cold in the West Wing

Something tells me Scotter Libby got a cold in court.
I hear he is sneezing all around the White House and keeps saying, "PARDON ME!"
No one in Cheney's office is responding with "God Bless you" just yet.
But I hear the shotgun is being cleaned.

A kick in the gut reaction

On Tuesday morning, the rest of the country was introduced to the quiet east Parker County burghs of Hudson Oaks and Willow Park (located west of Fort Worth, Texas) in the saddest way possible – unspeakable tragedy. The grisly discovery of four dead bodies (three of whom are small children) at the Oak Hill Mobile Home Park is now known far and wide – with the video from the mobile home park splattered on widescreens from Washington, D.C. and New York to Los Angeles.
And all points between. By mid-afternoon, a scan of all the major Texas online newspaper sites (Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, Houston) led with this story, complete with photos. It was the lead video on the Los Angeles Times website and it was a major component to MSNBC and Fox News online viewing.
A friend from Charlotte, N.C. has already read it and was verbally upset by 10 a.m. when he communicated with me.
No one will ever know what really happened that morning or why Gilberta Estrada did what she is alleged to have done. That would require a time machine and the ability to undo events that all the rest of us deem as horrific and seemingly unnecessary.
But no one has invented such a device and no one possesses the power to see such things in advance in order to stop them. That is only reserved for books, fictional television or motion pictures.
Such tragedies affect more than immediate families but communities. This will shake the very core of those living in Willow Park and Hudson Oaks because outsiders will only identify the two cities with this single event. The stain will be that permanent.
I do not mean to be flippant about all this but I do wish that those contemplating murder-suicide will do all of us a favor and reverse the order of action. Try the suicide first and then see about the murders after you’re dead. Might not work out the way you plan it and perhaps some innocent women and children could be spared a horrible way to die.
I’m sure Gilberta Estrada might have had issues and problems. But to choose to erase the lives of such young children, as is being presented by law enforcement investigators, is unimaginable, especially by a mother.
In this country, you have to pass tests in order to drive a car, and in some states, present rigid proof to vote. But absolutely nothing is done to assure that people who have NO business being parents, do not have children. At least nothing is done to ask them to think a smidgen before conceiving, or go through the process of producing children.
I won’t get into any political debate of sanctity of life other than to say this: We have to care for children AFTER they are born and try to avoid such scenes as happened in the Oak Hill Mobile Home Park. Alternatives for desperate people even slightly contemplating this course of action need to be made available, and well known to all. As is usual inmost tragedies, this might have been avoidable.
So now the people of Willow Park and Hudson Oaks must live with the national exposure and pain. Empathy, not disdain, is what many people need to share with these people.
Sorry, but this is my gut reaction and it’s raw, exposed and probably totally inappropriate. But, perhaps not, wrong.
P.S. - The smalltown paper that directly serves those two communities is the one for which I do online copy editing. It's a small world some times. - CB

Farm Boy to Fly Boy

The following is a poem that one of my best friends wrote in honor of her grandfather. I blog it in his and her honor on this final hours of Memorial Day, 2007:

Apple pie and raspberries with powdered sugar tops,
Downstairs in the basement there were colorful gumdrops.
The scent of pipe and garden soil, and a hundred thousand miles
Stories he would never tell, between sighs and mischievous smiles.

I knew him, but I didn’t, in a perfectly wonderful way,
Where stories bring the intrigue of a long forgotten day.
When heroes tore the clouds open, and let the sun shine through
When my country respected the cost, and what those pilots do.

I knew him as a hero, but not for foreign beaches,
My hero made me cheesy bread, sardines and canned peaches.
My hero told me stories of five-cent movies shows
Of a quiet farm, wheat fields and chasing away the crows.

He was not a war hero, as one would think they are,
Mild and sweet tempered, I could push him awfully far.
The zoo and elephant-ears, will never be the same
And neither will the sound of an old, low-flying plane.

And, if in a dream I sit with him, back in 1942,
I’ll let him tell me everything he ever wanted to.
And I will listen intently, knowing that in time
Those stories will be all I have, cause life stops on a dime.

He will never be forgotten, though his ashes fly,
He’s left with us sweet memories that now fill up the sky.
And that’s where he would want to be if he were asked today,
“Just let me soar over the mountains and shoot your tears away.”

For my Grandpa
Col. Martin Doyle Mulligan
1917-2004

Jennifer Johnson

On this Memorial Day ...

On this Memorial Day weekend, as I have in past years, I will remember Robert M. Bloom.
When my father served in the U.S. Army, people called him “Doc.” He was an Army paymaster, flying along the famed Burma Hump during World War II in order to execute his responsibility. He rode in planes that were nothing more than cheap flying cigar tubes, stripped of all their protective armor in order to gain enough altitude to clear the Himalayan Mountains.
Robert “Doc” Bloom never killed another man. He fired his sidearm once at a group of Japanese soldiers who were attempting to shoot his plane one day when taking off. When I was growing up, he never really shared his feelings about how it felt, or what it was like to be shot at. It was just another chapter of his life.
The only ramifications from his war experience were two things he swore never to do — wear khaki or eat anything that contained curry powder. They were promises he kept until the end of his life.
At Dad’s commercial printing business, there was a salesman named Carl Taylor, a quiet, unassuming man who raised three sons to be fine young men and was an elder in his church. He loved baseball, and he and I would chat about America’s Pastime whenever I visited the office.
Sixty-two years ago, Carl was one of thousands of young American men waiting in cramped transport boats for the orders to invade mainland Japan. Had President Harry Truman not used the atomic bomb against Japan, he and 1 million other soldiers would have deployed to end the war.
Chances are Carl Taylor, and millions of other human beings, would not have survived to raise their sons, talk baseball and be elders in their churches. President Truman’s choice, even if it produced a level of destruction previously unseen in the history of mankind, saved lives — millions of them.
This winter, the 66th anniversary of America’s forced entry into World War II will be remembered, as it is always, at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. I visited one of this nation’s most sacred spots during the 60th year and it was a time to reflect upon all that war can wrought.
That point in human history is not remembered as it should be in a world that has thoroughly changed economically, socially and strategically. Japan and Germany are no longer military enemies — just economic rivals and ideological allies. But there are still some men, and a few women, who wore the uniform, who remember Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Midway, Bastogne, Anzio and Bataan. They aren’t just singular footnotes in history or movies to compete with other holiday entrants. They were real battles, involving real people, for the survival and freedoms we enjoy today.
Sixty-six years should be enough time to let the bitterness against former enemies subside. Six generations have since seen communist walls erected around nations and people, and also seen them crumble — brick by brick. We have tried to embrace former governments we thought would be mortal enemies. We still have men and women who wear the uniform dying in armed conflict, trying to defend our freedoms and attempting to deliver that magical concept to others.
Almost no one on Earth is left alive that fought in WWI, and too many people have a total lack of appreciation for what America went through back then or in World War II. To them, “ancient” history is Vietnam, or JFK, LBJ or Richard Nixon. Or even George W.H. Bush.
But that should change on Memorial Day, which is still an opportunity to educate all Americans about how we got to where we are today. The dropping of the atomic bomb should be a somber remembrance of what can happen when nations go ballistic. But neither should we acquiesce our history to placate another nation’s unwillingness to accept history and its verdict.
We need to honor those who gave their lives and put their bodies on the line to win that conflict; an event that changed our world forever. It was an unwritten promise made the moment the surrender papers were signed on the USS Missouri — that we never forget Carl or Doc. Because they were promises we need to keep until the end.

Collegiate football Hall of Famers

The newest inductees to the College Football Hall of Fame were announced Wednesday.
They include Heisman Trophy winner QB Doug Flutie of Boston College and TV personality Ahmed Rashad, who was known as Bobby Moore at Oregon as a slotback-receiver.
Others going to the College hall are Indiana running back Anthony Thompson, Oklahoma center Tom Brahaney, Clemson linebacker Jeff Davis, Texas defensive back Johnnie Johnson, Ohio State’s legendary quarterback Rex Kern, linebacker Reggie Williams of Dartmouth, USC linebacker Richard Wood, Notre Dame defensive tackle Chris Zorich and Central Michigan coach Herb Deromedi.
Two other names are included with whom I have a personal contact.
I knew Michigan defensive back Dave Brown in college; a quiet guy who did his talking on the field. A GREAT PLAYER!
The official record will list Dave Brown as the 33rd Wolverine to be inducted and just one of 17 Wolverines to be a two-time All-American (1973-74). He had nine interceptions, 173 tackles and was an excellent punt returner – 48 returns for 531 yards (11.7 avg.), and three touchdowns.
Although drafted by the Steelers, he played 11 seasons with Seattle and four with Green Bay. He did get a Super Bowl ring for the lone year in Pittsburgh (1975) and earned All-Pro honors in 1984.
After his playing days, he coached cornerbacks for the Seahawks from 1992-98; retired briefly and then was at Texas Tech from 2001-05 when a heart attack took his life in January, 2006.
He was all of 52 – just a couple of years younger than me, but we were in the same collegiate class as students.
I will always remember Dave Brown for his kinship as a Michigan football player and being part of an unofficial fraternity known as the Den of the Mellow Men. Started by a clique of African-American team members, Brown joined after the likes of Reggie McKenzie and Billy Taylor who proudly walk among the Ann Arbor campus together and lived together in a particular house.
Brown was always seen with HIS running buddy, quarterback Dennis Franklin, two Ohio lads playing for Michigan. They could be seen everywhere in Brown’s golden Oldsmobile convertible with Brown’s prominent Afro hairstyle, one of the more pronounced and buoyant of any team member hairdo, an easy sight to behold.
Their head coach, Bo Schembechler, would often bark (he never scream but barking would be quite common), for Brown and when his defensive star would find him, Bo was actually asking for Franklin’s whereabouts.
“How would I know, coach?” Brown would ask.
“Because you don’t go anywhere without him and vive versa,” Bo would answer.
I’ve also come to learn that Deromedi was a Michigan graduate, posting a 110-55-10 record at Central Michigan (1978-93). He then became athletic director for CMU from 1994-2006.
The late Wilson Whitley came out of Brenham, Texas (as a Cub) and went almost unnoticed to the University of Houston as a defensive tackle, playing for Coach Bill Yeoman at UH.
Whitley was also a great HS pitcher and played on the same football and baseball team as Baylor’s running back Cleveland Franklin.
One of the stories I tell happened when I first arrived in Houston in 1976, and went to the Astrodome to do a feature story on the making of a made-for-TV movie, “Murder in Box 352.” It would later be aired as “Murder at the World Series” and it was a work of complete fiction since it had the Houston Astros (in those old softball, multi-orange uniforms) actually winning one.
(I got to eat lunch with Karen Valentine of “Room 222” fame and the great Michael Parks, who was supposed to be the next James Dean … but wasn’t.).
Actors in A’s uniforms were extras, including two members of the UH football team. Wearing Vida Blue’s uniform (as a right-hander not as the real lefty) was Danny Davis, an unknown quarterback who would shock the Southwest Conference in leading Houston to the Cotton Bowl.
The other was Wilson Whitley, who stayed seated in the Astrodome dugout as the long process of filming took place.
No one talked to Davis, except this brand new sports editor from Conroe (yours truly) and Davis was ready to tell anyone within ear shot that UH was going to win the conference.
“Just ask my man over there,” Davis would say, pointing to a resting Whitley, slightly larger than the average Oakland player. “Whit, are we gonna win?”
Whitley simply shook his head affirmatively, and laughed.
He became an All-American defensive tackle but never made it in the professional ranks.
When I covered UH that season, Davis and Whitley would always remind me of that afternoon in the Dome – of the prediction and the actors they found so fascinating.
Whitley died far too early in life as did Dave Brown.
Don’t we all.

Stormy weather

It was quite a night the other day when on Wednesday (May 2), yet another violent thunderstorm struck the Dallas-Fort Worth region at nighttime. But this time, it hit real close to home --- to the house actually.
Around 7:30 p.m., boom! boom!, out went the lights for the next 11 hours. A storm of intense verocity arose from the west, swept across the Metroplex around 45 mph and carried strong straight line winds of close to 100 mph - hurricane-force winds that seldom happen in a land-locked region.
At our Plano home, we could hear the rain, but never felt anything shake from such strong winds. It was the enveloping darkness and quiet that was disconcerting until around 6 a.m. the next morning when the power, which was out for more than 300,000 customers in the DFW area, resumed.
After finally obtaining a couple hours of sleep, I emerged after noon to get the newspaper and mail. I noticed some small branches and leaves in the yard and thought nothing of it. It wasn't until I took a couple more steps and saw our 30-foot tree sliced in half - as if Paul Bunyan had taken his giant ax and hit it flush at the base.
It had fallen over, taking almost 2/3rds of it with the collapse. Luckily, it really didn't hit our house all that much, nor did it touch the nieghbor's home.
But, as I discovered, we weren't alone. With winds reported in excess of 85 mph, a majority of the homes on our side of the block had similar happenings. Huge fallen tree trunks on the ground, or in one case, still a couple of stories in the other branches - just waiting to crash to earth.
Around the corner, fences were down and one house had four trees snapped, falling on a parked car.
The oddity was to see few trees across the street affected. On our side, it was like someone had that Bunyan ax and just kept swinging. In most cases, one swing did the trick.
Of course, this will all cost out of pocket since nothing is covered by anyone's homeowners insurance policy. Damn!
Lesson: Always respect Mother Nature because she ALWAYS has the last word.

Don't leave the planet without it!

The following Chuck Bloom column was published in today's edition (May 3, 2007) of the Collin County Opinion pages of the Dallas Morning News.
My wife, bless her purse-toting heart, owns (and, on occasion, uses) an American Express card. Not too often, but often enough to accumulate a certain amount of redemptive points called Reward Points. Awarded on a dollar spent-for-point basis, cardholders are permitted to redeem said points for gift certificates, merchandise or other special promotions offered to those distinguished members of the AMEX family.
And at the start of each year, cardholders are reminded kindly of such opportunities via a catalog outlining the number of Reward Points needed to exchange for gift certificates at various national and international restaurants (a few of which even exist in Collin County, such as Roy's), airline travel (on every international brand you can name), or other nice perks (shopping certificates, race car lessons not garnered on U.S. Highway 75 at noon). The card makes you feel right at home with Tiger Woods or Ellen DeGeneres – two of the company's celebrity endorserers (a made-up word that rhymes with sorcerers).
This catalog is almost like the annual Christmas book from Dallas' own Neiman Marcus, with some really exotic things offered, but not seriously considered, by 99.99 percent of the people in the land. You might want to buy his and her personalized crystal Potato Heads (by Swarovski) for $15,000. But, get serious; it's not the same as sticking plastic into an Idaho spud. A sports fantasy package starting at $250,000? That's an hour of Alex Rodriguez' time.
In the AMEX catalog, the most expensive items involve spa visits, including one to a spot at the Lake Austin Spa Resort, which can be yours for five nights, at a mere 800,000 points. Another spa in Arizona (Miraval) is worth 850,000 points, which is an awfully expensive rubdown and the best Bengay money can buy.
But they aren't No. 1. That distinction belongs to the person who wants to take a suborbital flight courtesy of the people at Space Adventures. That is worth (pause, take a breath) ... 20 million points! That's right, you read it correctly. So on a dollar-for-point basis, you will have to spend $20 million for that seat (and you don't even reach outer space). By the way, the subzero gravity flight is just 500,000 points for that weightless feeling that you can get at Six Flags.
So I ask: What can you possibly buy worth $20 million on any kind of American Express card? How much jewelry? How many cars? How much travel? Jeez!
I can't help but flash back to the Richard Pryor movie, "Brewster's Millions," where Pryor must spend $30 million in a matter of weeks and show nothing of value for his efforts, or lose a massive inheritance. If you have that kind of money to put on an American Express card in order to take a suborbital flight, why would you need to charge it?
As a measuring stick, the 2007 Maserati Quattroporte Automatic, a fine-looking piece of motor works that gets a nifty 14 miles per gallon in the city, goes for around $130,000. You'd need to buy 153 of them and there would still be change remaining. You don't have that big of an entourage, my friend.
Or you could buy actor Jeffrey Tambor's home in California. He was Hank in "The Garry Shandling Show" on HBO ("Hey, now!"). It's a nice five-bedroom, 4 ½-bath number at 4,200 square feet, a Cape Cod-style house built in 2003. It's yours for $2.9 million and, to get that AMEX perk, you would need to buy the house more than six times over.
Hey, now!
Wait a second ... Plano businesswoman Anousheh Ansari spent her own $20 million to hitchhike with the Russians for an extended space flight a while back. But this is American Express, not Moscow MasterCard, so I kinda think they insisted on cash. Or a certified check. Or, perhaps, coupons.
Of course, there's that nasty little hangup en route to space flight. Not every business takes American Express. In fact, it is a rather selective number of establishments in that AMEX circle of friends. So when the opposition card commercial used to boast, "it takes (you fill in the "priceless" blank), but it doesn't take American Express," it was merely pointing out one of the facts of shopping life. You might want to buy something, but that green card might not let you across the store's border ... so to speak.
Just to be clear, I returned to the 2006 Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog and, lo and behold, guess what? Virgin Galatic (part of Virgin Atlantic Airways on steroids, I guess) offers a seat on a charter flight ... to outer space – for a mere $1.764 million. Who da thunk you could get a bargain like that at Neiman Marcus?
Wonder if they'll take American Express for that?

Another Imusism

Please link to this lovely example of stupid, insensitive possibly racist remarks in Tarrant County (Fort Worth), Texas by some yah-hoo judge:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050207dnmetjudgecomplaint.38a7084.html
The story, written by Debra Dennis of the Dallas Morning NEws, speaks for itself:

FORT WORTH – A Dallas attorney has filed a complaint against Tarrant County Judge R. Brent Keis, saying the judge told him that blacks are better suited for athletic endeavors because their ancestors survived the slave trade.
Nuru Witherspoon, who is black, said that Judge Keis made the comments as he appeared before him in court for the first time last month. Judge Keis said that Mr. Witherspoon misunderstood his comments.
"After introducing myself to Judge Keis, he told me he thought slavery and the Middle Passage made my people better athletes," Mr. Witherspoon said in a written complaint that he says he
filed with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
"Judge Keis further stated that we are bigger and stronger athletes because weak slaves were thrown overboard and never made it to the Americas," the complaint said.
Judge Keis, who handles civil cases, said he is not racist.
"I don't see the black and white," the judge said. "We had an off-the-cuff conversation about athletics. I told him one story is the Middle Passage and the sick and weak had to be pretty strong and that provided a good genetic basis for black athletes. I don't remember what prompted it."
Judge Keis, who has been the bench 18 years, likened the remarks to comments in sports lore that he said he has heard from athletes, including Calvin Hill, a former running back for the Dallas
Cowboys.
Mr. Witherspoon said the judge's comments were made April 16 during a hearing on a personal injury claim stemming from a traffic accident.
The judge, Mr. Witherspoon said, also made unsettling comments to his clients.
According to the complaint, the judge told the couple that "Tarrant County is made up of Republicans that think like him. He went on to explain the risks of litigation to my clients," Mr. Witherspoon wrote in the complaint.
"He told my clients that if they want to 'bet on black' it's their choice," Mr. Witherspoon said.
Judge Keis said he routinely uses a "roulette wheel" analogy when lecturing parties about the legal process but said he did not mean
anything racist.
"I tell them they're gambling," the judge said. "I told them, 'You can bet on black,' and I should have said, 'You can bet on red.' "
Mr. Witherspoon said the exchange was prompted when Judge Keis asked about the origin of his first name.
"I told him it was from Africa, and he began a lecture on slavery and the Middle Passage," Mr. Witherspoon said. "I'm not a real sensitive guy. I've developed a thick skin. People have a right to feel how
they want to feel. But my clients were more offended than I was. In fact, when we went into the hallways, they apologized to me."
He said his clients, who are white, chose to negotiate a settlement because of the comments made by the judge.
"They also told me that that was one of the reasons they settled
because they wondered if the judge would be fair," Mr. Witherspoon said. "We had some really important issues before the judge. So when he went off on slavery, they didn't feel they had a chance.
"I don't want to make a stretch and say he's racist. But he definitely has no tact whatsoever," he said.
Seana Willing, the Judicial Conduct Commission's executive director, would not confirm that a complaint had been filed.
"We have confidentiality rules. As a general rule, we'll investigate a complaint. If the evidence points to misconduct, we contact the judge and they're allowed to respond," Ms. Willing said. "The confidentiality is there to protect the investigation, and it protects the judge from having to defend himself against charges that are yet to be ferreted out."
Mr. Witherspoon listed Suzanne Calvert as the opposing attorney on the complaint, but Ms. Calvert said that she was not in the court
and that another attorney whom she would not name represented her office. Her office has a policy against speaking to the media, she said.
Mr. Witherspoon, 29, is a co-founder of Kelley & Witherspoon, a Dallas law firm that specializes in civil litigation. He is a graduate of Paul Quinn College and received his law degree from the University of Mississippi.
Judge Keis has no record of disciplinary history with the state board, officials said.
The judge said he would like to apologize to Mr. Witherspoon.
"From what I know, he is upset or angry," Judge Keis said. "I'm not sure what his motivation is. I don't want to hurt anybody. I apologize if I did, but Calvin Hill agrees with me. I'm no racist."

'The Sopranos' finale scenario

In all the blogs about the end of "The Sopranos," everyone has missed the key scene of last night's show. It was short and not that noticeable, but when put together with two other scenes, you have the utlimate finale (which I have blogged to others in past weeks).
And it goes like this: Tony is in deep ... "shower scene" (that could be the most lasting impression of 2007) with the FBI; they finally got him by the canolis.
HOWEVER, Tony is going to pass along some important information to his cop buddy-snitch at the ... Department of Homeland Security about the two Bada-Bing Arabic wannabes who he spotted last night outside of what looked like a mosque.
Can you spell "terrorist cell?"
That is the chip, the winning bet, if you will, that he will play to "retire" to Florida as an ex-boss ... with others to fight over his turf
Some will not survive; some will thrive. But Tony Soprano will live to belittle Carmela amother day. AJ will be king of the pizzeria, although he won't be in any Puerto Rican Pride parades and Meadow will have nothing to do with her father
Tony will be probably alone as he should be - no Dr. Melfi, perhaps no Carm, no Paulie, no Chris-tah-fuh and no Sil (he's just 24/7 Baba Bing).
Alone.
To think about what his life has been and will be.
Mark my words, please.

Invisible poll tax on the march

As we speak and sleep, there is an onerous effort moving through the Texas legislative – an attempt to institute what amounts to a poll tax, to prevent certain people from voting.
It confuses what is a privilege with what is an unfettered right as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Driving a car, which requires a license (containing a photo ID) is a privilege. To obtain it, you must pass a test and pay to have the license renewed every six years. It is a money-making operation for the government. The same holds true for passports; you pay for the privilege to travel.
Voting is an absolute right; you do not pay currency for your rights.
The bill in question is House Bill 218, sponsored by Terrell Republican Betty Brown. It passed 76-69 in the House last week and is sitting in the Senate, awaiting debate and possible action.
Currently, voters either show their voter registration card or, failing that, produce an identification to match their name to voter registry rolls. The bill would require a photo identification card, although it isn’t clear what constitutes a valid ID, or two other forms of non-photo identification at a polling place, and other ineligible residents from voting.
First of all, no one has proven that voter fraud is a problem in Texas. It exists everywhere because such things exist on all levels of society – from business to education to elections. However, the severity of these incidents, in this state, is rather minimal.
What many of you don’t know is that anyone registering to vote must either produce a Texas driver’s license and a valid social security card and number. This information could be validated at the county election administrator’s office, which is responsible for keeping the voter registration files.
Second, there is NO law which requires a single American (or Texas) soul to own a driver’s license. Without one, you cannot drive a motor vehicle, but you do NOT sacrifice your Constitutional rights – voting among them. If you are blind or handicapped, you might not drive, but you can vote. If you have reached a certain age, you might not drive, but you can vote.
The bill does allow for “exemptions” – a free state-generated photo ID and the handicapped and citizens over 80 (I guess if you’re 79, you are out of luck). But as I said, there is no law that states you MUST possess a photo ID. If people want to debate instituting a national or state identification system, using one card to serve multiple purposes, let’s have that discussion. But don’t muddy the waters by keeping anyone – the poor, minorities, the handicapped, and the elderly – from exercising their Constitutional rights because of some nebulous umbrella known as voter “fraud.”
After all, can anyone prove that driver’s licenses don’t also involve “fraud?” Remember this: non-citizens can easily get driver’s licenses, but it doesn’t give them the right to vote. Just go to any high-tech corporation in the region and see the different employees from various countries – all with valid licenses.
Then there is that question of validity. My wife works for Texas Instruments and is required, for all her moments inside that building, to sport a visible ID badge to let people know she is who she says she is. However, will that badge, which a multi-billion-dollar corporation issues and accepts as “valid,” be good enough to appear to vote in a statewide election? Or is only the money-making driver’s license system instituted by a state government?
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a poll tax – you have to pay your way to vote. And that’s been ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sadly, the language of the legislation and language of the debate suggests ulterior motives. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, again a Republican who presides over the State Senate, said his chamber favors “making sure American citizens vote in American elections.” We all know what that means; they are code words for illegal immigrants despite the fact that there has been no evidence of massive participation in elections by non-citizens.
And don’t you think, in certain locales, Hispanic Americans will be hassled far more when trying to vote, merely because of the color of their skin or the inflection of their surname? Please, don’t be so blind.
And if you are black, and suffered through segregation in this state, as well as coordinated efforts throughout the South to keep you from voting, this all smacks of the bad old days.

“Nothing pains me more in this House than to be forced to talk about being black in America, and that is what I must talk about because that is my experience; that is the lens that I see through,” said Rep. Helen Giddings (D-Dallas). “I keep praying that the day is near when we will be colorblind, but that day is not here yet. You cannot erode one freedom without eroding a little of yours.”

She is absolutely correct. As is the case with other factors in out society, you cannot become slightly pregnant and you cannot sacrifice freedoms and unalienable rights for a moment – once it happens, everything changes for the worse.
For a group that constantly fusses about lack of voter turnout, it seems odd that heaping more unnecessary restrictions on the process would improve matters. Of course, it isn’t the process that voters find objectionable; it’s the cast of characters and the scenario they perform within.
With so many problems that currently exist in Texas, that require the immediate and undivided attention of the Legislature, this is NOT one of them.

NASCAR fans ARE pro wrestling goons

Tony Stewart is dead on the money and NASCAR should refund his fine. He accurately compared the sort, as it stands today, to pro wrestling, except his target was wrong.
It is this wacky collection of idiots, known as NASCAR Nation, which resembles the pro wrestling remark.
For the second consecutive week, veteran driver Jeff Gordon, one of the sport’s all-time best competitors, won a race. And for the second time, the idiots in the stands, the ones who insist on sporting the numbers “3” and “8” next to their shotgun and deer rifle racks, pelted Gordon and his winning Chevy with beer cans, many of them loaded with brew, constituting a dangerous weapon if striking a human being.
In the real world, that would be assault with a deadly weapon, but in NASCAR, it’s called “fan reaction.”
That is the same kind of reaction one would except in the WWE.
Here is the report from the Associated Press on today’s race (April 29):

TALLADEGA, Ala. – As beer cans bounced around his car, Jeff Gordon crossed
the finish line Sunday for win No. 77 – breaking a tie with the late Dale
Earnhardt on NASCAR’s career victory list.
It was only fitting that it
happened at Talladega Superspeedway, where Earnhardt – who would have been 56 on
Sunday – won 10 times in his Cup career.
But it was anticlimactic and
confusing, ending under caution to leave Gordon unsure if he’d actually won and
taken over sixth place on the wins list.
“Is it over?” he radioed his crew.
“Is it over? Is it official?”
Nobody knew after two separate accidents on the
first lap of a three-lap shootout to the finish froze the field and had NASCAR
scrambling to make sense of the finish.
It was a stark difference to last
week, when Gordon won in Phoenix to tie Earnhardt’s mark and flew a No. 3 flag
on his victory lap as a tribute to the seven-time champion. The gesture was
poorly received, though, as fans threw debris at him even though Dale Earnhardt
Jr. immediately – and publicly – praised the tribute.
Junior condemned fans
for throwing beer cans during the week, imploring his “Red Army” of supporters
to instead toss toilet paper out of safety concerns.
Track officials did
their part, warning during the pre-race ceremony that any fan caught throwing
debris onto the track would be arrested. They made good on it, too, hauling fans
away in handcuffs as officers stationed in the stands fruitlessly tried to stop
it.
Gordon’s crew, meanwhile, frantically called for security help to get the
team spotter out of the stands.
“It don’t look like it’s something you can
control,” Earnhardt Jr. sighed.
As the beer cans rained down on his car,
Gordon cut short his on-track celebration and drove to Victory Lane.
“I never
caused a riot before for winning – well, maybe once or twice,” Gordon said. “I
thought Junior had more power. I thought they’d throw toilet paper, which is
what he asked them to throw. I saw maybe one roll.”
But Gordon was
understanding of the fan reaction.
“There are a lot of fans out there who are
Earnhardt fans who don’t want to see (the record) broken,” he said. “I
appreciate the enthusiasm ... the opinions of all the fans out there. What are
you going to do?”
Earnhardt Jr., who made a brief run at the victory,
finished seventh. But unlike last week, when he visited Gordon in Victory Lane,
he stayed away from the celebration.
“I told him this week, I said, ‘You win
this one and I ain’t coming into Victory Lane this time. That caused too much
trouble,”‘ Junior said. “He’s a great race car driver. I knew years ago he would
eventually pass my old man. I think he has the opportunity to pass a couple
more.”
Tony Stewart, embroiled in controversy all week for likening NASCAR to
pro wrestling, was knocked into the wall far ahead of the first accident. He
bounced off the outside wall, slid down the track and into the inside wall, then
stood fuming on the apron as he waited for the field to pass. He made an angry
gesture at Jamie McMurray and David Gilliland as they passed under
caution.
With all that going on, Gordon was too hesitant to claim the
win.
As the field slowly headed to the flag, and the beer cans began to fly
over the fence and onto his car, he accepted it.
“I don’t see any toilet
paper,” crew chief Steve Letarte said.
“I love that. It’s awesome,” Gordon
replied.

No sane sport allows for such heinous fan behavior, but I’ll bet that most of the NASCAR nation thinks that nothing has been done wrong and such behavior is just “funnin.’”
Goof balls! It’s not so much of a sport as a reason for white-trash, rednecks to gather and get fucking drunk and disorderly.
And these people have enshrined a dead driver who was the nastiest, most reckless person on the track.
By the way, Gordon has married two of the hottest women on the planet, so boo-hoo to all of yoo-hoo. Or should I say, yah-hoos.

What has New Orleans done to deserve this kind of non-treatment?

Only God knows what the people of New Orleans did to draw such mistreatment, such ignorance, such lying and such disdain from the Bush White House to have rejected more than $800 million in aid after Hurriance Katrina.
From the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/28/AR2007042801113.html?hpid=topnews
Had that monetary offer come to spend on the Iraqi War, it would have been gobbled up and spent in a nanosecond.
All the people of New Orleans did was to be black (for the most part), poor (for much of the city) and in a state, and town, run by Democrats.
As I have said often, why someone isn't in prison for criminal negligence, including the people in the White House, is beyond me. However, the culture of outright lying starts at the very top when the Liar-Decider stood in Jackson Square and said he would do everything possible to see that New Orleans was a restored.
Liar! His lies on this and other matters have hurt and even killed people. All Bill Clinton lied about was getting a "hummer," not the vehicle either.
Which is worse?

A 'Hull' of a way to go!

A sports quickie. Once again the Dallas Stars are one-and-done in the Stanley Cup playoffs and it's all because or their pathetic lack of offense. That stems form a massive failure to even court a free agent who might be considered a "sniper."
Head Coach Dave Tippett will probably be fired and the search for the person who will begin for someone to retain the players' respect and attention.
I have such a name - someone others looked to during his playing days.
BRETT HULL!
He's feisty, firey and won't take crap from anyone. He would institute an offensive scheme geared to scoring. He'd insist on players with shooting ability, not an entire roster of low-paid grinders. He'd also insist on some real speed and dump the excess baggage like Lindros, Nagy, Klemm, Nordstrom, and others.
More importantly, he would awaken the dormant feelings in Dallas where no one, outside of the arena crowd itself, seems to care.
Perhaps that would include the superstitious idiot owner Tom Hicks, (who wouldn't travel to Vancouver because of some stupid Game 7 "superstition" but was at the Ballpark wathcing the Rangers). I'd betcha he'd certainly take a road trip if the Rangers were in the playoffs (don't worry; his seat in blue-blood GOP rich Highland Park is safe).
I'll take all the credit for this movement in Dallas: BRETT HULL AS COACH!

"It's going to be a bumpy night"

On this, the 13th anniversary of the devasating Lancaster, Texas tornadoes of 1994, Mother Nature left a little calling card that she, not us, rules!
All over the Dallas-Fort Worth area, there have been reports of funnel clouds and actual touchdowns (tornadoes) from two different storms - one in the afternoon and one during most of the evening.
No injuries have been reported, except for those with nervous stomachs, and rainfall amounts might exceed 8-9 inches in some locales.
The Metroplex has been in a severe drought for the last 2-3 years, with reservoirs, on which all the area depends for drinking water, as low as 13 feet down normal levels. All these April storms - this is the fourth such "stop the presses" major burst in the last 2-3 weeks - will do much to alleviate that drought condition.
Until the long, hot summer as Tennessee Williams wrote.
Old-timers in Lancaster, and those who left after 1994, had to feel strange about all this happening on this date. In fact, the storm struck Lancaster at 9:38 p.m. in 1994, and that community was being rained upon heavily when the clock moved to that position on the dial tonight. Deja vu all over again.
Sadly, here in Plano, no warning sirens sounded ... at least I couldn't hear them, and that sucks. I cannot imagine, with all stations reporting the severity of this storm, what it will take to ignite those sirens.
I know no one reads this blog, at least no one responds, so y'all probably don't care. But as one who went through it 13 years ago, my mouth got a tad dry tonight.
However, it IS the price to pay for cheaper housing and cost of living in North Texas.

The best writes on THE best

Of all the tributes from colleagues and writers, this one from ESPN's Peter Gammons, who himself was the top baseball columnist from his days on the Boston Globe, can be found on ESPN.com:

"When we lost David Halberstam, we lost the greatest journalist of my lifetime, or perhaps any time. He interviewed, he studied, and he put it down in a historic perspective so brilliant that it was intimidating to anyone
else who tried to capture a fraction of time and place in print.
He wrote the ultimate book about Vietnam ('The Best and the Brightest'), he wrote 'The Powers That Be,' and one can argue that 'War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals' was even more extraordinary, with no agenda (he portrayed the senior Bush as one of the great modern foreign policy presidents). 'The Breaks of the Game' about Dr. Jack Ramsey, Billy Ray Bates, Bill Walton and the Trail
Blazers was a sports classic, as were 'Summer of ‘49' and 'Summer of ‘64' and 'The Teammates.'
He was an elegant man, dressed nattily in a blazer and bow
tie. Yes, he wore them when he was in the third row for Springsteen at Fenway Park, and he wore them to see Little Feat at The Chicken Box on Nantucket. Ever the gentleman. Ever kind.
He fearlessly covered the civil rights movement for a small Mississippi newspaper, and he stood up against the Kennedy administration when he covered Vietnam. To see the small snapshots in the context of the big picture is a rare skill, a skill no one better articulated than David Halberstam."

Finally some truth about the lies

It's taken a few years to happen, but finally, a Congressional investigative ocmmittee is asking some hard questions about the lies told by the Pentagon and U.S. military with regards to the fabircations surrounding the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman and rescued soldier Jessica Lynch.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/24/tillman.hearing/index.html
Bottom line is this: the Republicans wouldn't hold these hearings because they were scared of the Army brass and Donald Rumsfeld. Criticizing these bastards for lying was twisted into showing a lack of support for the troops.
That is such bullshit! Liars are liars, regardless of a uniform or three-piece suit. Our fighting men and women and their families deserve truth. War is not an alibi to sacrfiice the truth.
Yet truth is the biggest casualty since the Bush White House came into power.
Oops, I'm sorry - it just can't recall.
I hope Congress skins these people alive for the harm and hurt they've deliberately concocted upon families. It is inexcusable.
Shame, shame on ALL of them.

13 years ago ...

As I sit here and look at the weather radar, with the possibility of threatening storms, I see the calendar reads "April 24."
If you lived in Lancaster, Texas, or DeSoto, Texas (neighboring cities) 13 years ago (1994), it is a date that comes with a certain amount of uneasiness.
Twin F4 tornadoes, which were actually spinning together, struck the two southern Dallas County communities, around 9 p.m. (exactly 9:38 p.m. when the storm struck Lancaster's Town Square), killing three people and destroying more than 600 homes.
It was one of the most destructive tornadoes to hit this part of North Texas, but goes almost unnoticed (except for a visit to the former historic site which still bears the quite visible scars on that night) in the Metroplex. Even the people of Lancaster fail to stop and take one minute to remember the dead and the hurt it inflicted. Instead too many people pretend it didn't happen. Which is sad more than it being in bad taste (which it is as well).
Those of us who went through it, and covered it for the news media afterwards, won't easily forget. Which is why today, I keep one eye on the skies and the other on the calendar. History often DOES repeat itself.
Let's hope not.

The world has lost one of its best writers-voices

There are deaths of notable that make you wince in its suddenness and personal impact.
The death of author-journalist David Halberstam was one such moment.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/042407dnnathalberstamobit.263c3d9.html
Not only was he a Pultzer Prize winning journalist for his Vietnam coverage, but I loved him as a chronicler of my favorite sport, baseball. He was greatness in all areas but pure genius when it came to America's pastime because he was able to perfectly capture all nuances and meanings of a game played by men but invented for boys.
He wrote "Playing for Keeps, "October 1964," "The Amateurs," "The Breaks of the Game" and "The Teammates," the latter book about three legendary Boston Red Sox players (Johnny Pesky, Dominic DiMaggio and Bobby Doerr) going to see Ted Williams for one final time in October, 2001.
However, the creme de la creme had to be "Summer of '49," which detailed the most exciting pennant race ever - the 1949 epic battle beween Boston and the hated rival New York Yankees. It was, and is, the finest book EVER WRITTEN on baseball -- period, end of discussion, no more words need be said or written.
Halberstam was working on a book about the 1958 NFL defining playoff game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York football Giants. He was en route to an interview with ex-Giant QB Y.A. Tittle when a car plowed into his vehicle in Menlo Park, Calif.
The world cannot afford to lose its most talented people before their time is up ... or before the world is ready to give them up.
Take a moment to say a word of prayer for David Halberstam, a DaVinci among wordsmiths.
The world is worse off.

Introducing Imusisms

I am now officially coining a new phrase for the political and social lexicon – Imusisms. In honor of the dismissed radio shock jock Don Imus, who just didn’t know when to shut up, I am creating a category for all those idiotic statements that inadvertently insult people, when it would have been best to close their yap and say nothing at all.
Hence, an Imusism.
The first entry goes to former Wisconsin governor-Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, who is also running a darkhorse Republican campaign for President.
According to Political Wire, Thompson told a group of Jewish activists that making money is “part of the Jewish tradition,” and something that he applauded, as reported by Haaretz.
“I’m in the private sector and for the first time in my life I’m earning money. You know that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that.”
After causing “a stir in the audience,” Thompson only made matters worse by trying to apologize.
“I just want to clarify something because I didn’t [by] any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things. What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion. You’ve been outstanding business people and I compliment you for that.”
Gosh, I must be the poorest Jew I know since I have no innate ability to make money, unlike, apparently, all my brethren. But we must all be like Fagen, right? We’re the moneychangers.
Why, oh why, do people verbalize such stupid stereotypes and why do they seem to run for political office so often?
Thank you, Tommy Thompson, for providing the first Imusism. I’m sure there will be MORE to come. If it catches on, I want ALL the credit.

Virginia Tech shooting reaction

On the Dallas Morning News' editorial blog - Dallas Morning Views - some Jack Bauer wannabe wrote that, in essence, the students at Virginia Tech were too pussified to challenge this murderer when he was using classmates and professors for cheap carnival target practice. This idiot suggested that it was cowardise and a lack of any balls that no one stopped him, and ran for the cover of desks to keep from getting blasted.
Right, like this person is going to charge a man discharging a weapon in full view of friends and colleagues and pretend it's a water pistol. What bullshit! But this is the introspective time for such cow droppings.
Guess what? Those young people did exactly what 100% of us would have done - dive for cover. A few in one classroom tried to barricade the door when the man returned. And that action might have saved more lives.
This sheer nonsense about allowing students to "pack heat" to stop such isolated cases muddles any sensible discussion. Guns DO kill people although that's not the real problem in almost every case (it would still be nice to make it a teensy bit harder to get one - like a return to a 7-day waiting cooling-of period and/or certification of some kind of pre-purchase training before actually getting your hands on one).
The rage from within that drives some people to resort to such action IS the problem. Rage make people want to kill people.
And frankly I don't have a quick, convenient answer.
No one does.
All you can do is shed a tear and hope it doesn't happen to you or someone you love. That is SO fucking sad about the state of our nation and our society.

News from my darling wife's employer

The hot news from Texas Instruments:

TI is running in Monday's 111th Boston Marathon. Well, not exactly.
But TI's
technology – small radio-frequency identification (RFID) transponders attached
to runners' shoelaces – helps track athletes' times as they stride over 13
rubber mats placed along the 26-mile course. The transponders transmit each
runner's identification number to antennae on the mats, which sends the data,
including times and locations, to nearby computers for verification at the
finish line. Friends and family can also track the progress of their favorite
runners online or through wireless handheld devices.
TI's technology –
originally developed to track the movement of livestock rather than athletes –
is part of ChampionChips' TimePoint timing system. More than 23,000 athletes are
expected to lace up with TI's technology in the April 16 marathon, the first
major U.S. race to use RFID technology.

I think the portion that reads, "originally developed to track the movement of livestock rather than athletes," says it all for me.

More disgusting news leaking from FEMA

Today's Washington Post has this story about how inept FEMA was during Hurricane Katrina.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041202411.html?hpid=topnews
Here's a good question: When will someone be held CRIMINALLY liable for all this waste, fraud, corruption and pain that the government made worse.
Second good question: When will we treat our OWN citizens better than people in lands (and sands) far, far away????
I guess NOT until Jan. 21, 2009.

Time ot take a deep breath all around

In my 30 years as a journalist in Texas, I imagine I have written as many as 1,500 opinion columns, ranging from sports to politics to religion to how my son cut his own hair at 4 years old and created a bald spot.
I’ve never been fired for anything I wrote (of course for half that time I worked for me and couldn’t afford to find anyone willing to work for me), but I got called on the carpet plenty. Either the publisher or the editor or a major advertiser or someone among the readership didn’t like this or that. It happens.
But each time I submitted or published a column, I took a deep breath and re-read what I had typed. It offers me a chance to re-examine the piece – to be sure what I was writing didn’t cross a line I knew existed in the sand of my public. My training and experience was my guidepost; in other words, I knew better.
Guess what? Don Imus knew better; he had been on the air for over 40 years until he forgot the “rules” and that deep breath. As a result, CBS ended the current phase of his radio career (don’t worry, there’s always satellite radio where the rules don’t exist).
The media highway is littered with the carcasses of former columnists, reporters, radio personalities and television anchors who made the kind of mistakes that warranted dismissal. Don Imus has been canned before for one reason or another and it will happen again.
Dan Rather lost his CBS Evening News anchor chair over a major mistake during a “60 Minutes II” report. Conservative Ann Coulter’s column was dropped by scores of newspaper after she used a nasty derogative remark pertaining to homosexuals in discussing former Senator John Edwards,
The media list is endless and it doesn’t stop there. Al Campanis gave a stupid answer on “Nightline” about the lack of African-American managers in baseball. He meant one thing and said it improperly. He got fired. Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder made a ignorant comment about the quality of African-American athletes and CBS Sports fired him as soon as it could.
An observation: the most sensitive topic in this nation is race. The old saying is not true – never discuss religion or politics with anyone. Americans, because of our charred history, cannot discuss race relations without striking raw, exposed nerves. Almost all of it has to do with history – discrimination, one of the reasons for the Civil War (which stopped, but never ended in many parts of the South), inequality and failure of respect for fellow human beings.
Sometimes, “get over it” is not the proper answer. However, old ingrained ignorances are difficult to erase. And it is SO prevalent because it is the easiest difference among people to identify. Well, most of the time. Until we change minds and hearts, we will never change actions.
Radio might be on a seven-second delay and “dump buttons,” to mute offensive language (those seven little magic words that cannot be said or heard) be employed. But it doesn’t prevent stupidity.
Live television has no such barrier of protection. Just as CBS and Viacom about Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” which results in fines in the millions of dollars from that nanny group, the FCC. It was obviously a situation which could not be controlled and live means live.
Yes it does, Mr. Imus.
Unlike the written word, which can be changed prior to print, once sounds that constitute words are uttered and leave the mouth, there is NO taking them back. They are out there for all to hear and in our modern world, where the entire world has instant access to visuals and audios, those words are disseminated in a flash – before most people have a chance to take a breath and react. It is certainly faster than most people have time to think and contemplate.
So, in the world of radio and television, the control must exist from within. That person has to take that inner breath and simultaneously think in an instant before actually verbalizing his or her thoughts. It’s one of the reasons that not any man, woman or child can become a radio talker, and even fewer can be seen on television.
Newspaper writers have themselves to police their own works and an additional layer of protection known as editors. When heinous mistakes are made, and people are feeling the ax, it usually means a writer AND editor goes – it is shared responsibility.
Let’s make NO mistake about who got Don Imus fired – Mr. Imus himself. And make no mistake about who pushed him out the door. It wasn’t Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or anyone on the Rutgers women’s basketball team; that’s just knee-jerk bigotry in action.
It was advertisers to whom all of us in the media are beholden. Paychecks in the newspaper world are issued based on two sources only – advertising dollars and subscription/single-copy sales. That’s IT! In our world, advertising (or as I have called it, “paid news” because they pay to get their message/story to the readership) accounts for 70-75 percent of all revenues. It is a powerful force and when a major advertiser complains, the head honchos listen … closely.
Sometimes the people at the corporate food chain buckle and sometimes they stand by their people. The latter is called integrity and conscience; the former is called pressure. An underling can be fired and never have done anything wrong or written anything false. It isn’t right but it happens … all the time!
Don Imus didn’t qualify under the umbrella of integrity. He went for a cheap laugh and it was disgusting. I’d merely ask all the fathers of girls if they thought it would be funny if their daughter was on that team.
Times have change and the degree of tolerance has also changed for our acceptance of mistakes. What was fine 30 years ago isn’t acceptable today – nor should it be.
We’d all be better off if more people with microphones and cameras took deeper breaths prior to speaking.

How low as a society can we stoop?

Perhaps the real debate over language and statements (such as was made by Don Imus) needs to be expanded to what this country now believes is "entertainment."
For years, blowhard Rush Limbaugh has been categorized as a "radio entertainer," not any kind of journalist (which he is NOT; he used to work PR for the Kansas City Royals). But what does THAT say about our society that a man who literally chastisted and wickedly attacked the appearance of Chelsea Clinton during the entire Clinton Administration - merely to "entertain?" As a father of two daughters, that is the biggest reason why I believe that man should have an audience of one (himself).
Once upon a time, actual talent was the guiding light. Now it is shock and schlock that rules the day. Don Imus had been make an exceptional living at it for 3-4 decades because the level of acceptance is as low in our society as it has ever been. Millions watch, and then stupidly analyze, the no talents on "American Idol," led by a man who has gained wealth for insulting them.
I chalk it up to the divisive political/social climate where the "win at all costs, even at the expense of other people's reputations" attitude has ruled since 1980. It isn't enough to be comfortable within your own skin; you have to destroy those different from you in order to achieve that comfort level.
Watch to see how many radio "entertainers," who engage in the same methodology, defend Imus. They now see what can happen to their golden goose and they could be next.
One more point: While the news often has an irony all its own, the linkage of the Duke rape case to Don Imus is totally imappropriate. Race is common in both cases, but one was a criminal case that should never have been (why haven't the investigators been more closely scrutinized?) because of a false accusation; the other was a by-product of attitude.
Don Imus should not be imprisoned; Mike Nifong might well need to be.

How insensitive can a company be?

When it comes to corporate lows in treatment of employees, I nominate Time Warner Cable to earn the Snake's Belly Honor for being totally despicable.
Time Warner force done of its employees to make a service call at 8 a.m. on EASTER SUNDAY for an appointment I did not make (the central office did that) to replace a faulty DVR box. The service center called at 7:30 a.m. on EASTER SUNDAY to wake me up and inform me of the impending visit.
After waiting on the phone after a 20-minute hold (45 minutes the day before when I failed to get a human voice and just hung up), I either had to make the switch right then or wait an endless numbe rof weeks ... or weeks before I got what I was paying for - a functioning unit.
I apologized to the service guy for getting him out there but explained it was not my creation and scolded the service center for being so insensitive. The woman on the other end could not have cared at all. He seems appreciative but it was little consolation.
What kind of corporate mindset sends out reps on EASTER SUNDAY??? It is absolutely shameful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In Plano, Texas, there was a simple trade of systems with Comcast; Houston got Comcast and we got Houston's Time Warner system (and a Internet provider to be named later). I also have the wireless Internet connection through TW and it's all bad. I feel like the Coyote, not the Road Runner using them.
However, in truth, no one else offers DVR service and I won't go satellite because I'm not climbing on my roof or anything that stupid.
Why should I? Why can't I get quality service out of what is essentially a monopoly? I know you have switched to a competitor (I'd love to know who that is), but the lines and all controlled by the main provider - Time Warner in Plano.
The public had no say in the matter and the elected representatives on the city council ONLY care about maintaining the franchise tax payment, which Texas cities are allowed to charge utilities. God forbid that someone should fuck with their money.
Aside from the U.S. Postal System, no one has worse customer service than cable TV providers. You can be mummified while on hold. Time Warner makes American Airlines look good and that's putting lipstick on a pig and calling her Miss America.
I know she wasn't working on EASTER FUCKING SUNDAY, you MORONS!

Bye, bye I-man

At least on MSNBC, Don Imus is history, as he should be.
Here is the statement from the poobahs at MSNBC.

"This decision comes as a result of an ongoing review process, which initially
included the announcement of a suspension. It also takes into account many
conversations with our own employees. What matters to us most is that the men
and women of NBC Universal have confidence in the values we have set for this
company. This is the only decision that makes that possible. Once again, we
apologize to the women of the Rutgers basketball team and to our viewers. We
deeply regret the pain this incident has caused."

Imus should be locked in a room with the players' parents and look them in the eye and explain why he thought such a rude comment was ... funny. In fact, the producer, Bernard McGuirk, started the entire conversation and he skates in all this. That man should be canned now and never darken a radio studio again.
Of course, there is the premise that such language and conversation passes for ... humor. One might want to joke about New Jersey and Tony Soprano and the Nets and Jimmy Hoffa, etc. But those were hard-working athletes who earned their shot at an NCAA title.
Besides, here's another question. Is Don Imus really funny? For someone who claims to host a comedy show, he jumps into politics all the time. Most of which is pathetic, not funny. Imus hasn't been funny since I reviewed his comedy album "10,000 Hamburgers to Go" in 1972 when I worte for the Michigan Daily at the University of Michigan. The man's been around for 4 decades!
But is he funny? No, he's too crotchity and old and wornout to be funny anymore. Perhaps this WILL signal that he is out of touch and needs to hit the sidelines. One employer has made that call.
Do I believe he is a hardcore racist? No. Is he insensitive to what words can do to others? Absolutely. Should he come to the realization that this is the time to exit stage left (or right)? Hopefully on his own.
Then again, I am not "entertained" by what passes for talk radio today and many things said on the air are equally as offensive, but off-handed dismissed as mere politics. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, Mike Gallagher, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Lars Larson and all those like-minded parrots are just as bad and hateful as anything Imus utters.
And it ain't entertainment, baby, unless you enjoy seeing ac hild pull the wings off a butterfly.

Imus statement addendum

The sad, SAD irony of the Don Imus comments is that in a split second, plus the long, regurgitating public reaction, more attention has been focused on Rutgers and women's collegiate basketball than ever saw the Scarlet Knights play this season ... or saw the NCAA Finals against Tennessee. It took a negative for people to notice.
In Dallas, which hosted a regional final (although there is NO base of support for women's basketball), only 3,600 went to Reunion Arena for the finals (it seats 16,000). How embarassing is THAT! Another reason why there is no WNBA team in Dallas, but there is one in San Antonio, which has NO history of women's basketblall support.
And ... when will white people start to understand that words DO matter about minorities?
Answer? When they realize that you can joke among yourselves (blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians, etc.) because it's usually not born of malice; it's a putdown based on other's stereotypes. But when a white person says it, its roots ARE malicious.

Welcome to Texas – it’s a whole other nanny state

If being a conservative means you interject your personal morals and religious beliefs into everyone’s life all the damn time, then count me as a card-carrying liberal.
This is from today’s Houston Chronicle:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4704365.html
The most annoying and horrifying conservative in Austin is not nut-case radio talk show host/station owner Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston). It is, and always has been, State Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa). He has orchestrated prior legislative moves to defund programs that provide low cost health insurance protection to poor children and other such “pro-family” moves.
But the bill being proposed goes beyond the scope of anything seen before. Now he wants Big Brother to tell you what you have to do PRIOR to getting married and what you have to do prior to getting a divorce.
WAIT! That’s what you have to do in the State of Chisum … wait. And pay more. And wait some more.
No legislator has that right and least of all, a person who solely bases his priorities on his personal religious beliefs that has wants spread (and accepted) by everyone else – regardless of THEIR personal beliefs. Mr. Chisum has already introduced a bill that would have the Bible taught in public schools and used as a textbook … again, dismissing the fact that thousands upon thousands of Texas use something entirely different as the basis of their religious worship.
And Chisum wants the clergy to lecture people on marriage and divorce. Someone explain to me how a priest, who can never marry or allegedly have sex (emphasis on allegedly), counsel anyone about those two areas? Based on any practical experience?
Monetary issues, more than anything, tend to be the root of marital break-ups. That kind of pressure leads to wrong decisions, thus destroying relationships. Add to that list, drugs and alcohol and other problems along those lines. Chisum and his ilk don’t address those problems areas because … oops, that would run into money that conservatives want to horde for themselves under the banner of “tax cuts.”
The problem of spousal abuse is a serious one; steps should be taken to prevent that. Of course, people should never rush into anything, including marriage, without fully realizing the consequences in total.
But for the state to force people into waiting periods, and forced education and counseling, is just wrong! Don’t cloak your blood thirsty desire to convert everyone to one manner of moral thought under the guise of helping the poor. Those people are the least of your concern.
When will people like Warren Chisum learn to stay out of my life and the lives of my friends … and even my enemies. Apparently never and that’s the biggest problem in Texas and the United States.

Alberto VO5 = Very Offensive 5 (times over)

I truly believe one of Alberto Gonzales' problems is the fact that George W. Bush has always given him his political offices and entry into a world that Alberto VO5 is totaly ill-equipped to handle.
While in Texas, the man never ran for anything, let alone won anything. He's always been given his jobs by the same guy, and always been around to cover someone's well-exposed ass when that certain person fucks up royally.
Alberto, hwo was just another non-descript lawyer, was appointed by Bush as:
* Texas Secretary of State (he followed Tony Garza, who would run rings around Gonzales intellectually)
* Texas Supreme Court justice (without having EVER been a judge of anything ... from appellate court to American Idol or even a beauty pageant)
* White House counsel (how's the Patriot Act and all that justification for torture going, huh?)
* Attorney General (I never thought anyone could be as bad as John Ashcroft; oops, wrong that time!)
With Bush, there IS no Alberto Gonzales because he couldn't win office (he's not that good of a politician or candidate). He is what he is - a fuckin' puppet, writing opinions based on politics, and what his superiors WANT, not what the law requires.
To quote Upton Sinclair:
"If is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
I heard this quote from Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," but that should not diminish its truthfulness. It speaks exactly to Alberto VO5.
Mister Peter Principle if ever there was one. And if you have to look that up to undestand it, you are too goddamn young to be reading.

Texas politics producing tragic embarassments

The current political party in power in Austin - the Republicans - has been so fixated on the singular task of reducing property taxes in Texas that far more meaningful problems have gone unresolved and become tragic embarrassments to all Texans.
And it makes you want to cry.
The criminal negligence surrounding the emergencies that exist within Child Protective Services and the Texas Youth Commission cast a sad shadow across this state. This is how the rest of the nation views how we treat children in need, by starving their budgets to death and then covering up abuse (in the case of TYC).
In testimony, it is disclosed that as many as 40 foster children, with no place to go because of a shortage of foster homes/parents and the resources to hire enough people to process the cases, are forced to sleep in CPS offices. What kind of bullshit is that?!? How dare the state of Texas treat children in that manner?!?
Understaffed workers often place these children in situations, equal or worse than the danger that is being avoided. The case load in Texas for a caseworker is twice the recommended national average and people are fleeing from the professional side.
The TYC situation, where abuse has taken place of young children in TYC facilities (by adults), gone unreported and covered up, is intolerable. Heads should roll but they won't because, now we learn, the TYC information reached the governor’s office before last November’s election. Yet nothing was done and fingers are pointing in every direction. I'm sure we will hear a now familiar refrain, "Mistakes were made." The next politicial to utter that should be shot on the spot.
We should be ashamed of ourselves and of how our so-called representatives in Austin are reacting to this catastrophe. It is a prime example of bad government on the cheap and the all-too-casual dismissal of our social responsibilities for the sake of saving a few pennies here and there. Paying less taxes is fine and dandy if we can afford it. But not if we have to live with such blight on our society, perpetrated by people who workship the almighty dollar more than the human condition.
However, until the voters decide to change the faces making these choices, to vogte these bastards out of office, we will be saddled with such horror stories.
"We get the government we deserve." - Don Henley

Gambling at Rick's American Cafe?

"I'm shocked, shocked I say, to find that gambling is taking place in this establishment!"
Read the link:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070320/FEATURES01/70320042
And the next line from "Casablanca" was:
"Ah, your winnings, sir."
"Thank you."
How appropriate.

All hail the end of ‘Rome’

This Sunday will be sad day for me and others who crave quality television, regardless of its content or origin. The final episode of HBO’s magnificently over-the-top historical drama, “Rome,” will be aired, ending its two-season run,. The final storyline will deal with the obvious storyline of the demise and subsequent deaths (by suicide) of Egyptian queen Cleopatra and her lover, Roman general Marc Antony, along with the rise of the first Roman emperor, Octavian.
This will NOT be a remake of the 1960 Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor soap opera movie or Marlon Brando’s Shakespearean version. In HBO’s “Rome,” Antony is not to be praised by anyone, having so many vices as to render him shallow and incompetent. Cleo is a total vixen, who uses sex as power to get exactly what she wants from men. She has all the scruples of an alley cat and the morals of a cheap prostitute. Yet she is a force definitely to be reckoned with.
However, we all know she will get her little asp kicked.
The show might revolve around a “what might have happened with all those British accents” premise, but the central core of the drama has been the friendship of two common men, Roman soldiers, Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo. Scriptwriters have heaped every kind of tragedy and peril at them – from the death of spouses to ancient brain surgery, the kidnapping of children and countless bloody skirmishes. Each man has saved the other’s life and what once was a commander-underling relationship has morphed into a strong, manly bond that comes from genuine friendship tested by time.
The end of the series means viewers will not be able to continue Pullo’s and Vorenus’ journey through history as observers. They are the only ones in the entire series allowed to speak to future emperors and generals with a degree of honesty. You feel for them and honestly want nothing too bad to happen – although most of their tragedy is fairly predictable based on how things happen on “Rome.”
This series follows Roman history fairly well – through the presence of Octavian, considered the most important of all Roman rulers (from his growth as a young man to his ascent to historical glory). To read a history of the man, and how well the storyline follows history, go online to http://www.roman-empire.net/emperors/augustus.html.
It is a series that does not care if main characters, or major supporting characters, are dispatched – rather brutality if truth be known. But romance was not part of the Roman Empire – that emerged later. It was a brutal time for men and women, filled with ribald sexuality and rather obscene grabs for power constantly. All that is on the cable TV screen and seldom is a punch (or sword) pulled.
The acting is excellent and I would hope that 42-year-old Northern Ireland-born and English reared actor Ray Stevenson, who plays Pullo, will find more roles in major theatrical productions. He turned Pullo from a brutish, boorish killer into a man with deep sensitivity and humanity (yet always to be feared because that “monster” could be unleashed at ANY moment). At 42, he is an overnight sensation in the U.S., having only been seen in “King Arthur.”
It’s sad that a third season won’t be forthcoming. Reading the history of Octavian would certainly provide more than enough intrigue to carry a 12-episode season. But such is (Roman) life.
The first season has been on DVD for some time and it is worth viewing for the bravura, textured performance of Ciarin Hinds as Julius Caesar. But the series belongs to the like of Stevenson, the exotic Polly Walker as Atia (Octavian’s conniving mother), Kevin McKidd as Vorenus, and James Purefoy as Antony.
All hail Casear! All hail “Rome.” I hope anything HBO adds to its schedule (with the final eight episodes of “The Sopranos” to follow in the Sunday timeslot) will meet the same incredibly high standards.

Racism is the real issue in Farmers Branch, Texas

Many of you have heard about Farmers Branch, Texas, a bedroom community directly north of Dallas on Interstate-35, where the city council, under the “leadership” of a neo-conservative wannabe named Tim O’Hare, who will undoubtedly be seeking higher office in 2008,
This May, there will be referendums, widely publicized across the nation, the primary initiative being about forcing landlords not to rent to so-called illegal aliens/immigrants. There have been demonstrations, protests and accusations hurled like football across Texas Stadium.
In all the pronouncements, proponents of the anti-immigrant measures have tried to make the case that race is not involved. But they have lied; it’s ALL about race and the entire issue is an anti-Hispanic attitude among the city’s white residents – mistakenly thinking that they can retain some sort of plantation mentality while the demographics change around them.
Now the proof is in the pudding … that could be sold at a grocery store in Farmers Branch that (horror!) caters to Hispanics!!! And it has the community in a racist uproar, peeling back the truth for all to see.
The corporation known as Minyard Foods has developed a store brand, named Carnival, which, yes, caters to Hispanic customers, the largest growing population base in North Texas. In fact, the store is the biggest money-maker within the Minyard chain. Minyard’s closes its flagship store in East Dallas to open (wait for it) a Carnival.
So why should Farmers Branch think its shit don’t stink on this issue? Not because the white folks say so. Sorry, your white sheets are showing.
And the debate, which isn’t really a debate because Minyard's hasn’t announced a damn thing to go into Farmers Branch, is couched with the kind of racist code words which find bigots hiding behind language.
The building in question was built in 1959 at the corner of Josey Lane and Valley View Lane called the Four Corners (nearly 50 years old and 50 years since substantive renovation). It was once a Skaggs Alpha Beta (a blast from the past for your Southerners) and then Albertson’s moved into the structure in August 1991. It became a Super Saver in December, 2004, and closed late last summer.
Oh yeah, Super Saver? NOT high-end, Senor O’Hare.
There is also a rumor that Brookshire Brothers (oops, NOT high-end) might move into the space. Except Brookshire’s seldom ventures in large urban areas. The Tyler-based chain like smaller, often rural locales … which is NOT Farmers Branch, which hasn’t seen farmers in years.
“I think it is a reasonable thing to wish for to have a grocery store that appeals to higher-end consumers,” O’Hare told the Dallas Morning News. Of course that implies that Hispanics aren’t HIGH-END customers.
More from Mr. O’Hare.
“If a fast-food joint was coming into the Super Saver parking lot, and I said, ‘Hey, can’t we get a Chili’s?’ who am I discriminating against?" he said.
Hey, Tim, you classify Chili’s as HIGH-END????????? Dude, read a Zagat once in awhile.
There is an e-mail (aren’t they becoming the tools of the devil lately?) floating around Farmers Branch from a City Council candidate named Tim Scott, which “encourages residents to call the company to say they want a Minyard, not a Carnival. That has prompted others to distribute fliers or go door-to-door with the same message. Mr. Scott said that he doesn’t recall who told him about the store’s possible arrival but that he heard it from a couple of people,” according to the Morning News story.
And he is quoted using more of that deceptive “language.”
“I don’t think we need any sort of ultra-discount store in there at all. We’re a town of ultra discounts as it is,” Mr. Scott said in the paper.
Gee whiz. So ultra-discount means LOW END, eh? And lots of people believe Farmers Branch caters to that crowd because of the number of businesses chasing that dollar.
Doncha think white people shop there, too?
Time to speak truth to power. The debate that has engulfed Farmers Branch and much of this state (and nation) is NOT about illegal actions by immigrants, or homeland security. It’s about white people’s fears about Hispanics and specifically people of Mexican descent and having Hispanic surnames.
I hope Minyard’s builds a freaking Super Carnival and let’s see if Mr. O’Hare and his followers reject the increase in the sales tax base, thanks to folks with darker skin and Hispanic names.
Perhaps they need to recite some Bob Dylan before the next council meeting.
The times they are-a changin.’

NCAA tournament picks

After falling asleep watching Michigan beat some crappy team from Utah (we need to get rid of Tommy Amaker), here are my first round picks.
St. Louis regional - Florida, Arizona, Old Dominion University (upsetting Butler), Maryland, Winthrop (upseting ND), Oregon, UNLV, Wisconson; Florida, ODU, Oregon, Wisconsin to sweet 16.
San Jose regional - Kansas, Villanova, Va. Tech, Southern Illinois, VCirginia Commonwealth (over Duke), Pitt, Gonzaga (better as a low seed than high seed), UCLA; KU, Va. Tech, Pitt, UCLA to sweet 16.
East Rutherford regional - UNC, Marquette, Arkansas (over smaller USC), Texas, George Washington, Washington St., Boston College, Georgetown; UNC, UT, GW, Georgetown to sweet 16.
San Antonio regional - Ohio St., Brigham Young, Tennessee, Virginia, Louisville, Texas A&M, Nevada, Memphis; Ohio State, Tenn., Louisville, Memphis to sweet 16.
My final four - Florida, Kansas, Ohio State and ... Texas! In finals, Florida 68, Ohio State 59.
But what do I know?

You can learn about lives in an obituary

I examine obituaries … every day. I read them to see that I’m not there and to see if I know anyone who is there. In my capacity as stay-at-home copy editor for The Community News in Aledo, Texas, I edit most of the death notices and obituaries that are published in that paper.
Each obituary tells a short story, or at least it should, depending on the amount of information set forth by the funeral home and family. And each obituary should try to contain something to connect it with the readers and, at least, say to the world that this person lived, loved and was a small cog in the machine we know as humanity – which is all we probably can ever hope to achieve.
When I read about the late Robert “Alex” Lee Alexander of Weatherford, Texas (west of Fort Worth), I was struck by his background – he was a retired Lt. Colonel from the U.S. Army and, most importantly, was an actual, on-the scene, Pearl Harbor survivor.
My first thought was, “I wonder if anyone ever recorded or heard the complete tale he had to tell about that fateful day?” Being a person who loves history and believes in the need to study it in order NOT to repeat it, I could only imagine the wealth of information that would have been garnered from a visit.
I learned this from reading the recap of this man’s life. Alexander passed away at the age of 90 and was just 10 days short of his 24th birthday when his world got rocked on that early Sunday morning.
He first joined the military prior to his 19th birthday and left after three years of service. But a year later, when the Nazis overran the French on their native soil, he re-enlisted and eventually made his way to Oahu.
“Alex” was stationed at Schofield Barracks when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 7, 1941. Like everyone else that morning, then-Platoon Sgt. Alexander, overseeing four gun crews, was in the process of having breakfast when the Japanese attacked. Luckily, he survived and continued to serve the U.S. Army for almost 28 years.
He was in the U.S. Army for 27 ½ years, serving as Company Commander of the 90th Division, a reserve unit in Fort Worth. He retained his rank of Captain and shortly was promoted to Major.
Too many Americans, the site of the fallen World Trade Center in New York City is considered hallowed ground, but to me, the real moniker belongs to Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii. And it isn’t just “ground” that is hallowed; it is the bottom of the waters where as many as 1,179 American sailors and soldiers went to their death on that December morning – the worst single military disaster (where more men died on a single vessel) in our nation’s history.
If you EVER get to Honolulu, you must visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, one of this nation’s best kept secrets and finest National Park Service properties. My personal journey came two days after it reopened followed 9/11 and it is one I will carry with me for the remainder of my time on Earth.
After seeing the 25-minute film, which includes footage never shown to the public having been captured from the Japanese military, visitors are ushered to a ferry boat for the short ride to the actual memorial, sitting atop on the sunken Arizona. Thus begins a period of silence – and you are reminded that you are about to enter a graveyard. Visitors adhere to that rule above all else.
There is a slightly eerie feeling when you step on the deck of the memorial (one has exactly five minutes to spend). Looking down shows the Arizona in plain view; the outline of the ship’s form is clear to see. The names of all its members are memorialized on a wall and the only sound heard are feet shuffling to and fro; even whispers are magnified.
The other sound is the mixing of the sea waves usually gentle as they strike the sides. A voice tells everyone with a minute left that it is time to leave. Of course, what you see never leaves you.
You will learn things you never knew before. For example, there were some 1.4 million gallons of fuel on the Arizona when she sank. More than 66 years later, officials say approximately two quarts a day still surfaces from the ship. Pearl Harbor survivors, such as Lt. Col. Alexander, refer to the oil droplets as “Black Tears.”
The Arizona memorial is not the only thing at the site; there is a shoreline tribute to all the ships lost in battle during World War II, a refurbished WWII submarine, available for touring, and, docked nearby, the battleship USS Missouri, where the Japanese signed surrender papers in 1945. During my visit, it was off limits; it was, and still is, an active military unit.
There are other unexplained sights that stir your emotions. Pearl Harbor seems to be a major destination for Japanese tourists, perhaps needing to learn the facts of history that their nation, for whatever reason, has chosen not to disclose (a charge often made about the government in Tokyo). One has to wonder what goes through their minds when confronted with the facts and aftermath of that Sunday morning.
The visit is free; you just need tickets (first-come, first-serve) since theater seating is limited (the memorial is open from 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and the film is shown starting at 8 a.m. and the last viewing is at 3 p.m.). And you will NOT be alone – the average attendance at the memorial is 4,500 per day, seven days a week.
The most stunning thing about the visit, other than the incredible solemn feeling that engulfs you, is the personal visit with a Pearl Harbor survivor – either military or civilian. My wife and I actually talked, at length, with a man who was on site during the attack. This man seemed genuinely grateful that we took the time to learn about that day and to honor him for surviving and teaching us about his history.
Sadly, those visits will be fewer and fewer by the day. These survivors are simply dying off and when the last man or woman is gone, all those memories and lessons will also disappear.
Lt. Col. Alexander was laid to rest on Feb. 27 in Weatherford. I was unable to be there and I was never able to know him, shake his hand and ask him one of a thousands questions I have about “that day.”
I am poorer for not having that opportunity, but our country is better for his service and his experience. We need to learn more from these veterans about what actually happened back then so we can teach future generations those important lessons.
Yes, you can discover that from just reading an obituary.

Religious hypocrites need to shut their mouths

People like the Rev. Richard Land, who profess to be all that more High and Mighty than the rest of us mere mortals (such as Jews), need to STOP being goddamn hypocrites for the sake of political power/advantage.
Here's the link to what I am writing about:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/07/giuliani.baptists.ap/index.html
I have two words for Mr. Land in rebuttal:
Ronald Reagan.
He divorced his first wife, actress Jane Wyman, for his second wife, actress Nancy Davis, for the reason that he fell in love with someone else.
And NO evangelical held it against him in the 1980 election. Hell, they overwhelmingly support Reagan over an incumbent president who taught Sunday School while in the White House. Regaan was never a steady church-goer while Carter wore his honest faith on his sleeve.
But his politics differed from the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and other hypocrites hiding behind God, Jesus and their own bigotry.
I do not support Rudy Guiliani for President, and he was a pariah on Sept. 10, 2001 (one day before you know what).
But these hypocrites need to stay out of politics and keep their mother-fucking mouths shut (and their too manicured faces OFF cable TV networks, which have no one better to fill their time with).
Please, spare all of us the discharge of useless hot air!

More signs that politics matter more than people to Bush Administration

A CNN report aired tonight is a perfect example of how morally corrupt the Bush Administration is about handling disasters. Politics rule above all else!
Over the past two weeks, three states have been ravaged by tornadoes, causing death and destruction - Arkansas, Georgia and Alabama. Two states have been declared disaster areas, eligible for federal assistance from that fine example of common sense and quick action - FEMA.
Care to guess which two?
President Bush flew down within 48 hours of one disaster to inspect the damage in two states and offer a shoulder to cry upon.
Care to guess which two?
Two of the three states have Republican governors. The third has a Democrat in the state house.
Care to guess which two?
Answer: Georgia and Alabama to all of the above. Arkansas is still waiting for help, despite the presence of 8,000 (that number IS correect) idle, empty FEMA trailers in ... Hope, Arkansas, home to that previous president, Bill Clinton.
A Democrat.
Oh yeah, a Democrat is governor of Louisiana and New Orleans and other affected parts of that state from 2005's Hurricane Katrina are STILL fucking waiting for the help, homes, trailers and attention PROMISED by George W. Bush, once he got his sorry ass there and after stating such a promise on national television.
Of course, he first visited Alabama Or Ala-fucking-bama to quote Joe Pesci) and Mississippi before he even sniffed setting foot in NOLA. Guess who has Republican governors???
With each passing day, this man in the White House becomes a national embarassment because cronyism and hackism combined with politics rules the day. Those living in states not friendly to "Hack" Bush can go fuck themselves for all he and his cohorts care.
Think it's all just some dumb luck coincidence? Puh-lese! Modus operendi, baby.
For the sake of this country's future, Jan. 20, 2009 can't COME fast enough.

VA - what FEMA has morphed into under the Bush Administration

The sad legacy of the Bush Administration/Republican-controlled Congress will be summed up in two anagrams – FEMA and VA. Because of the lack of the most minute amount of congressional oversight and the need to distribute political rewards through a policy which should now be termed “hackism,” this administration has shown its callous regard for what happens to people AFTER failed policies strike their lives.
The latest fiasco – how Veterans Administration is handling wounded soldiers and the nonchalant bureaucracy that denies or delays needed treatment – is too sad to often contemplate. At the head of the cabinet department is nothing more than a political hack, Jim Nicholson, who got the job in 2005 because … he was the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. It is a political payoff, not done to better the system, but as a payoff for re-election.
His head, along with every general in charge at Walter Reed and other facilities, should roll. Nicholson’s comment on the Bob Woodruff’s ABC News Special (“To Iraq and Back”) made my stomach turn in terms of too much indifference and protection of the bureauracy. He learned nothing from that other political hack-in-charge, FEMA’s Michael Brown.
This, and similar situations, where those in charge have run amok and failed miserably in their administrative duties, was one major reason why the GOP was tossed out last November by voters. At least someone is asking hard questions and demanding answers – albeit a little to darn late.