Month: August 2005

Texas legislators adjourned their second special session today sine die. That’s Europekingnese for “drop dead.”

How many millions did the legislature spend on these two special sessions? $4 million? More? Certainly not less. Gov. Rick “Pompadour” Perry called the Lege back twice after the 2005 regular session and they responded by passing no laws related to the main reasons for those sessions. That would be bills to change the ways public schools are financed along with a tax bill (raising taxes or lowering taxes — it’s all in the eye of the beholder).

But by jiminy they did manage to pass a telecommunications bill favorable to SBC Communications and other companies such as Verizon during this special session. And why shouldn’t the Lege pass such a bill? Good ol’ Andrew Wheat and the others at the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, based in Austin, gives this analysis of the telecommunication lobby’s bountiful givings to Texas lawmakers:

“Lobby records filed by the end of this year’s regular session tag SBC as Austin’s leading lobby force by far. Its army of 123 lobbyists—who reported up to $6.8 million in SBC fees—gave this giant well over twice the lobby clout of runner-up TXU (TXU paid 47 lobbyists $2.7 million.) Verizon, the next-largest beneficiary of the new telecommunications bill, paid 38 lobbyists another $1.8 million. As such, SBC and Verizon lobbyists outnumbered the 150-member Texas House.”

And what will we get in return for it? Well, SBC and the proponents of the telecom bill promise us the moon, stars, the outer rings of Saturn, and may throw in a new toaster oven. But what we really will get, I predict, is what is known in Costa Rica as “squat.”

The bill, which Gov. Hairball has yet to sign, paves the way for phone companies to compete with traditional cable TV companies. The worst of both worlds. SBC and Verizon are planning to spend a gazillion dollars for technology known as IPTV or Internet Protocol Television. It is billed as the next generation of technology that can provide video and Internet service to consumers through upgraded fiber optic telephone lines. A recent “USA Today” article about SBC’s quest for an IPTV kingdom explains a few bugs have to be worked out:

“IPTV works fine in the lab, where conditions are pristine. But throw IPTV into a live, working network with millions of paying customers, and all bets are off. Indeed, nobody knows how IPTV will behave once it is “scaled,” or rolled out, to millions of paying customers. One of the largest IPTV installations in the world is in China, and that one has only about 500,000 customers.”Scaling is clearly an issue,” says Jeff Weber, an SBC vice president in charge of IPTV. “And anybody who tells you otherwise isn’t just dumb — they’re lying.”

Hey, it’s only money.

It may be just as well that the Texas Lege did not pass any kind of tax reform because what had been proposed didn’t look like it was the kind of reform that benefits me. And after all, when you are talking about tax reform, who is more important than No. 1, eh?

I just wish the legislature hadn’t spent so damned much of the taxpayer’s money to do nothing. Of course, I’m sure SBC doesn’t see it that way.

The heat index outside is only 99 degrees so I don’t feel too stupid about what I am about to do. I am going to make chili. Yeah, you heard me, the state dish of Texas.

I don’t know what it is. I just had a busy day and had to buy something for dinner so I decided to buy the makings for a bowl of chili. Of course, it shall not cook for as long as I would like. No worry, I bet I still eat it.

Chili was the first food that I ever cooked that was better than my momma’s. It pains me to say that and I sure as hell never told my mother when she was alive that I made chili better than her. I made my first pot years ago when I worked as a firefighter. It was a freezing-ass January day, sleeting some as I recall. And we got called out on a house fire that afternoon just as I had begun cooking it. The house, a shotgun shack and thankfully not the one I was living in at the time, was a goner when we pulled up. When I got back to the station, I fired up the stove again and let the pot o’ chili cook some more. It was mighty fine.

I thought my chili was pretty good then and still do. My friends and I used to try to best each other on chili which led to an annual series of parties during my college years and just afterwards. These were weekend-long affairs with multiple kegs of beer. It was a wonder any chili was cooked at all and that we didn’t either set anything on fire or shoot someone. Let me just say a couch that I was getting rid of once and ended up on the bonfire one night of the chili cookoff proved not to be a very secure object to hide behind. That is because it was shot, really shot, to hell by all manner of gunfire. Drunk college kids with guns and chili. Nowhere but Texas.

This will be a more peaceful occasion making this bowl of red, or so I hope. Yeah, it’s crazy making it in this weather. But it will be most righteous, for sure.

Simplicity can surely not be overrated. Whether that is what rapper P. Diddy is thinking, who knows? E!Online News reports the notorious rapper Sean Combs, a.k.a. Puff Daddy, a.k.a. P. Diddy, has decided to shorten his name to just “Diddy.”

“I felt like the ‘P’ was getting between me and my fans and now we’re closer,” Diddy told E!Online. “During concerts, half the crowd is saying ‘P. Diddy’–half the crowd is chanting ‘Diddy’–now everybody can just chant ‘Diddy.’ ”

Ah so, it was an identity crisis! Of course, there always is the possibility that he really didn’t like being called “P.” I can’t say as I blame him.

I can empathize with the fact people don’t know how to address him. I felt the same way about the late rapper Old Dirty Bastard. I always felt fortunate that I never had to interview him because I didn’t know whether I should address him as “Mr. Bastard,” “Mr. Dirty Bastard,” “Mr. Old Dirty Bastard,” “Old,” “Dirty,” “Bastard,” or “ODB.”

The artist formerly known as Sean Combs has apparently decided that he is sufficiently famous (and pretentious) that he can be known by one name and one name only, such as Prince or Madonna or Cher or Liberace or Lucifer. I congratulate Diddy on his new name. I bet it saves like a nanosecond of time to write your name on an envelope.

Could it be in the offing that he might eventually shorten his moniker even more, say to “Did,” or even “dy?” Stay tuned. And breathe.

It has been almost three months since I have moved back to Beaumont. One of my daily rituals around here is an hour-long walk that I take on the neighborhood streets. My route changes from time-to-time, but basically it is the same set of streets. I also try to go about the same time each morning with hopes that it will not be so danged hot. Usually it ends up being hot and humid as is the climate here in the summer.

I see a lot of the same faces on my morning walks as well as a lot of the same dogs. As I walk down North Street, I see this Mexican man waiting on his porch to go to work. I finally said: “Buenos dias” to him this morning and he returned the greeting.

As I turn up Sixth Street I usually pass this woman who walks with her arms moving above her waist. It’s like she is trying to dance “The Twist” but doesn’t swivel her hips and just keeps walking. That just doesn’t seem natural. She always has a serious look on her face as if she is about to unleash an atomic-tipped rocket on Houston.

Moving a little farther up Sixth I see the two Rottweilers that are behind a fence and are tied up with the kind of chain you would see in a mechanic’s shop. Sometimes they stand up with their paws on top of the fence and bark at me, and sometimes not. I’m not keen on keeping dogs chained up all the time, but frankly, I’m glad these are. I would hate like hell for these dogs to leap over that fence and turn me into puppy chow.

I also run into a black shaggy dog from time-to-time that runs loose in the vicinity of Sixth Street. It is a moody mutt. Some days it’ll bark at me but I think that is only if I look at it. I can stomp my foot at the dog and it will cower and whimper. Big sissy.

On the numbered streets on the other side of Seventh Street, I usually see this tall, thin blonde walking what appears to be a black Labrador retriever. She must be giving the dog obedience training because she makes it sit before they cross the street. This woman, also rather severe in temperament, carries this big metal pooper scooper. I mean that sucker is huge. It looks like something the train station janitors use to sweep up the trash. Maybe that’s why the blond lady isn’t very friendly — she is being weighted down by that pooper scooper. Set it free missy! Set that pooper scooper free and be a happy person! Find some other way to pick up the dog crap that doesn’t make your arm fall off.

Then there is this guy who jogs all around the area in which I walk. He looks to be my age or a bit older, has gray hair and always runs with his shirt off. I guess he’s proud of his body which I suppose is something to be proud of, although I have never had one of those type bodies. At least this guy will exhale: “Hi.” Except it comes out “Huhhhh.” I sure hope he stays healthy because I don’t really relish giving anyone CPR at 7:30 in the morning.

That is just some of the dogs and people I have seen. They make my life infinitely interesting for a few minutes at least.

PS: The dog in the photo isn’t from the neighborhood. Morten from Norway took the photo. I guess it is his dog. I got the picture off of MorgueFile.com.

One of my guesses as to the source of the fire that caused all the smoke around Beaumont yesterday was correct. It was from a marsh fire. The Beaumont Enterprise reported that the smoke was from a lightning-ignited blaze at the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, which is about 40 miles southwest of here. The fire in the picture is at the refuge, only the photo isn’t of this fire but rather one in August 2003.

The smoke isn’t as bad today as it was yesterday. It really wasn’t so much of a factor later in the day yesterday as we had some pretty heavy-duty rains in the afternoon. But I just had to gloat over correctly guessing the source of all that smoke. I just knew it was from a marsh fire, or from Mexico, or from a KISS Concert or from somewhere.