Month: January 2008

Our economy was last seen traveling in a clockwise direction.

The Federal Reserve’s so-called “Beige Book” released today told us what we already knew albeit in a more subdued way than I like to describe it.

“Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts suggest that economic activity increased modestly during the survey period of mid-November through December, but at a slower pace compared with the previous survey period.”

Thus proving that even good is bad and evil is evil. The Fed cited the slow holiday sales and “weaknesses” in auto sales among the economic woes throughout most of the country. But the spending on tourism was positive, said Fed. This led the board’s chairman Ben “Let’s Cut ‘er a Point or Two” Bernanke to suggest the nation go to Disney World.

“Hey, whatever works,” said Fed.

Reports from most of the Fed’s districts indicated that certain “nonfinancial service industries including health care, hospitality, legal, and insurance” had seen a “robust” demand. All of which is very encouraging news to people who get sick, need a hotel room or are getting sued.

The Fed went on to say that businesses faced increasing prices for food, petrochemicals, transportation costs, Downy Fabric Softener, booze, cheap floozies, and opium. The report released by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors is called The Beige Book because its real name, Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions, takes way too much effort to say. It is released eight times a year provided the person who types up the report isn’t on vacation at Disney World.

Buried in the lede. Dead in the saddle. Asleep at the Wheel. Lions. Tigers. Bears. Cuban spies. Oh my.

Only 16 miles down the road from where I live is an American penal colony of proportions which may be unmatched these days, at least in the U.S. The “federal prison complex” on the swampy marshes bordering on what we call “Mid-County” — literally middle Jefferson County, Texas, between Beaumont and Port Arthur — itself has three separate facilities. This includes the maximum security U.S. Penitentiary as well as low and medium security “correctional facilities.” The state of Texas also has a major share of property down there in the marshes: the Gist State Jail Unit, the LeBlanc Unit, and the Stiles Unit. The controversial Texas Youth Commission also operates a facility in that area along with the Jefferson County jail and the county juvie lock-up. Did I leave anyone out? If so, forgive me.

That is truly, a s**t-load of cons.

What I find intriguing is how many stories that lie behind those walls, even though many of which are undoubtedly bulls**t spewed by inmates who proclaim themselves forever innocent of any crimes. The self-proclaimed “innocent inmate” who found God and now walks the straight and narrow is to be expected. I did not, however, expect to find a small Communist nation doing the hero-worship thing with one of the inmates in the prisons on the swamp.

Despite my conservative friends’ opinions, I am not a regular reader of the official state paper of Cuba known as “Granma.” I guess granpa must be hanging out with Elian. Sorry. If you must know about Granma, click here. Grandma, or grandmother in espanol, is “abeula” which you would know if you ever watched a Whataburger commercial. On Granma Internacional’s Ingles Web site is an exhortation for all good party boys and girls to write to the “Miami Five.”

The Miami Five is known in the U.S. as the “Cuban Five.” To the Communist Cubans they are heroes. To the U.S. government they are what one would call Cuban spies and even murderers. And one of the Miami/Cuban Five (formerly the Jackson Five after Tito and Michael left, no, stop, please!) — Ramon Labaniño — happens to be staying 16 miles down the road from me in the U.S. Penitentiary Beaumont.

The U.S. government convicted Labaniño, a.k.a. Luis Medina, and another of the five of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. Labaniño did not deny working for Cuba’s Directorate of Intelligence but his defense was that they were in this country to fight terrorists who threatened their country. One of our local incarcerated spy’s cohorts was also convicted of “conspiracy to commit first-degree murder based on his role concerning the February 24, 1996, shoot-down of two unarmed civilian aircraft in international airspace by Cuban Air Force jet fighters, which resulted in the deaths of four people, three of them U.S. citizens.” Sounds like a solid bunch o’ “heroes” to me.

Normally, I feel rather sad to find prisons being an economic base or cottage industry as it has become in my area. I don’t have anything against those who work in those prisons. I have friends and relatives who either have or are still working for various prisons. I have the utmost respect for those who keep such thugs as Labaniño, a.k.a. Luis Medina, behind bars. I just think the fact that prisons have become a growth industry for my region and state and even nation, doesn’t speak well for our society.

But in the case of those who spy against our country and set up people to be murdered by a foreign government, I am afraid they don’t get off easy with me. If there are any of the hundreds of prisoners living in that mosquito-infested marsh a mere 16 miles away whom I am glad to see behind bars it is this so-called Cuban “hero.” I hope he enjoys the sweltering summers here. Oh, and I am afraid I won’t be writing you anytime soon, Luis, or whatever you are calling yourself these days.

Sometimes it takes someone on the outside looking in to enhance the clarity of a situation. Such is the case with this FAQ by BBC News on the Michigan primary mess, which could be an even bigger mess for other states.

Of course, one might say RussiaToday doesn’t exactly accentuate the positive.

Zero tolerance is back, if it ever went away, and this time it has zapped a 4-year-old who attends my alma mater.

Newton (Texas) ISD Superintendent Gene Isabell said the 4-year-old girl was suspended for three days after allegedly showing a knife to another 4-year-old on a school bus, according to Jasper radio station KJAS. The station’s Web site reported that Tiffany Holloway said the accused 4-year-old produced a paring knife and threatened two of her daughters with the knife. But Isabell said a statement from the bus driver indicated the suspended girl had merely shown the other child a knife, which was given to the girl’s grandmother upon arriving home. The report by KJAS said the Newton County Sheriff’s Department was not investigating the incident and was not aware that it had taken place.

This kind of story drives a lot of people up the wall — one way or another — and with good reason. First and foremost you don’t want kids taking dangerous weapons to school. I know that if I was a teacher I would be especially weary of a 4-year-old toting a knife, especially given the presumed height of a kid that age. Yow, watch out for collateral damage! But did the kid really threaten the other girls? We don’t know the facts. And should the 4-year-old get kicked out of school and have a blemish on her academic record which will follow her around for the rest of her life? We don’t know the facts. Will the fact that we don’t know all the facts keep people from speculative comments which could range from the thoughtful to the other-worldly stupid? Sing with me: “Fairy tales can come true, they can happen to you …

Just when tensions between Iran and the United States have been good and ratcheted up, it appears that, at least, the radioed verbal threats against U.S. Navy vessels could have been made by a heckler.

Navy officials said Iranian patrol vessels made threatening maneuvers at U.S. warships recently in the Persian Gulf as well as having thrown some type of objects into the water. However, the military is trying to determine whether menacing transmissions made during the time of the incident were related to the Iranian activity.

Navy officials acknowledged that in recent years ships and aircraft operating in that region had been verbally abused by an anonymous heckler or hecklers who goes by the “ethnically-insulting handle of ‘Filipino Monkey,’ ” the independent, Gannett newspaper Navy Times reported today. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told the Times that the video was “superimposed over the video” to give the viewer a better idea of what’s taking place.

Such revelations are not at all good for the military’s credibility at a time and in a place where the folks back home must pretty much rely on our government’s word to find out what the hell is going on. The way some “chickenhawks” are getting gussied up in their war paint, one sadly recalls the so-called “Gulf of Tonkin Incident” and wonders if we are getting, once again, sold a bill of goods.

If you don’t know or remember what happened in the Tonkin Gulf and how it provided the U.S. an excuse to turn Vietnam into a full-scale war then perhaps you might read material found on the link above.

What is most disturbing about the uncertainty over the verbal threats in the Persian Gulf is that it casts a cloud over the entire incident’s credibility. I want to think our military is not pulling our leg and will give them the benefit of the doubt. Along that path, one has to think that the Iranians sailors were out of their mind if they did what the video and the U.S. Navy purports. And if that was the case the captains of those Navy vessels would likely have been legally if not morally justified in blowing those boats and their insane operators to bits. But if it turns out the voice was the “Filipino Monkey” and was “coincidentally” transmitted at the time that the Iranian small craft were running toward the warships, then I’d say we may have a problem.