Monthly Archives: November 2009

A funny, but most interesting commercial

November 27, 2009

 Early this morn­ing I was awak­ened by an ago­niz­ing pain in my left, lit­tle toe. I think I might have frac­tured it last night as I was putting my nor­mally hurt­ing feet – cour­tesy of neu­ropa­thy from a still undis­cov­ered ori­gin — up for rest.

 For some rea­son I had dif­fi­culty going back to sleep but it wasn’t just due to the pain. No, it was because I couldn’t remem­ber all the lines in that hilar­i­ous Dos Equis TV com­mer­cial, “The Most Inter­est­ing Man in the World.” Click here to see the ad.

 The bearded, non-celebrity can be seen boat­ing, play­ing jai alai or lead­ing a night-time expe­di­tion with all in tow dressed in their fin­ery. The voice-over pro­claims that “His rep­u­ta­tion is expand­ing faster than the uni­verse. He once had an awk­ward moment just to see how it feels. He lives vic­ar­i­ously through him­self. He is the most inter­est­ing man in the world.”

 Slate critic Seth Stephen­son points out that the most inter­est­ing aspect of the ad is the subject’s line: “I don’t always drink beer. But when I do, I pre­fer Dos Equis.” Stephen­son equates such an admis­sion to Tony the Tiger say­ing he doesn’t like cereal but when he eats it, his brand is Frosted Flakes.

 It is dif­fi­cult to imag­ine just to whom the adver­tiser is pitch­ing. It would hardly be the “Whaz­zuppp???” crowds of bygone Bud Light ads or the other babe-laden  ads which equate drink­ing tons of beers with find­ing tons of fine women. Sometimes  it is hard to fig­ure out just who an ad has been crafted for, espe­cially when humor is involved. Humor crosses many dif­fer­ent lines when it hits and just as many lines when it doesn’t.

 Nonethe­less, hats off to the firm that came up with this cam­paign for its clever humor and its appeal to mem­ory. It kept me up try­ing to remem­ber it word for word this morn­ing, didn’t it? Dos Equis has an accom­pa­ny­ing Web site with the cam­paign, the fun­ni­est part of this medium is that the most inter­est­ing man sup­pos­edly leaves a note telling peo­ple to explore what’s around his place. There, in his study one finds a num­ber of empty match boxes from for­eign spots which can be opened and which con­tain local insults, something Mr. Most Inter­est­ing insists is help­ful to know when oper­at­ing in var­ied cul­tural climates.

By admin | Posted in Say What?, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments off

Happy Thanksgiving, World leaders!

November 25, 2009

pod_reggie-football_PS-0339

Even those at the high­est reaches of world power need time for a lit­tle relax­ation dur­ing the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­days.  Here, White House aide Reg­gie Love tosses the Nuclear Foot­ball to Pres­i­dent Obama in the outer Oval Office.

By admin | Posted in Say What? | Tagged | Comments off

Being thankful for bad things

November 24, 2009

 It is the begin­ning of five days off. My Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day if you will.

 In days past I would be thrilled to have five days off for Thanks­giv­ing. These days I am not so thrilled. Happy? Yes. Thrilled? No. The rea­son is sim­ple: Money. Or a lack thereof. Pay­day is some­time between Sat­ur­day and next Mon­day.  Pay­day actu­ally is a week from Thurs­day but since I have direct deposit, my money usu­ally shows up on the Sat­ur­day before. Or the Mon­day. It’s like magic. Bad magic.

 I don’t know if this is an item falling under the “some­thing to be thank­ful for” list, but it is some­what of a relief for those of us whose gov­ern­ment work (part-time in my case) car­ries us into some sort of a reg­u­lar set­ting out­side of the office.

 Author­i­ties in Ken­tucky have finally ruled the death of part-time Cen­sus worker  Bill Spark­man as a sui­cide. Spark­man, as you might remem­ber, was found dead in the woods nude and with a rope around his neck. The words “Fed” had been writ­ten in pen on his chest and his gov­ern­ment ID was taped to his neck. His hands had been bound with duct tape. Police have deter­mined Spark­man staged his death to appear as a homi­cide in order that his fam­ily could col­lect his insur­ance policies.

 We will have to take the Ken­tucky author­i­ties’ word for it that it was indeed a self-inflicted death. I guess if other gov­ern­ment work­ers turn up with bizarre deaths then per­haps law enforce­ment folks will want to take yet another look at this death as well.

 Some of our promi­nent loud-mouth right-wing nuts got all bent out of shape when peo­ple started point­ing fin­gers at them for Sparkman’s death. I can see that. But there are plenty of peo­ple with ani­mos­ity toward the gov­ern­ment out there. Hell, the gov­ern­ment pisses me off some­times. But not to the point that some folks are enraged. Remem­ber, Tim McVeigh didn’t start anti-government domes­tic ter­ror­ism just as Osama bin Laden didn’t start jihadist terror.

 My advice to Cen­sus and other gov­ern­ment field work­ers is the same advice I give myself. Be aware of your sur­round­ings. Leave your­self an escape route. Trust your instincts. If a place and peo­ple make you uncom­fort­able for some rea­son, avoid that place. Go back and talk to a supe­rior about it or a co-worker. And be as nice as you can be … to your web-footed friends because that duck might be somebody’s mother.

 Sec­ond in the “thank­ful for” cat­e­gory: The Texans-Titans game last night. Being a Tex­ans fan, I’m glad as heck that game is over. Two games in a row almost Mr. Per­fect kicker Kris Brown missed a field goal that could have put the Tex­ans into over­time. The first time was with unde­feated Indianapolis.

 But goat times two that Brown might be, he didn’t lose either game alone. Titans quar­ter­back and for­mer Texas QB sen­sa­tion Vince Young did some fancy foot­work that made the Tex­ans defen­sive line look as if they had come only to watch the game. It’s good for the Titans they had Young  going for them because they didn’t have much else. Although, the Tex­ans could have done much bet­ter. They could have been sit­ting in the play­off cat­bird seat, what­ever that is. Oh well, 5–5 once again. That’s even-Steven. Be thank­ful for that at least.

By admin | Posted in Breaking news | Tagged | Comments off

One certain prediction in health care debate

November 23, 2009

 If I were to say I knew every­thing there was to know about the Demo­c­ra­tic health reform plan, then I think you could pretty eas­ily say that I was lying about such a statement.

 The  truth is that I, like prob­a­bly mil­lions of Amer­i­cans, know lit­tle about the plan which orig­i­nally tar­geted health insur­ance of some kind for all our citizens.

 But I think deduc­tive rea­son­ing will get one toward some pretty good sup­po­si­tions about some of the pro­posed fea­tures of the plan float­ing around out there. I say “sup­po­si­tions,” not “sup­pos­i­to­ries,” although I am sure the lat­ter would be an apt word to help describe what Repub­li­cans would like the Democ­rats to do with the plan.

 With respect to the so-called “pub­lic plan” that polls show Amer­i­cans favor, it should be easy to see that the only way any kind of pos­i­tive change will hap­pen is through some kind of a pub­lic options. Perhaps the major­ity of those polled like a pub­lic plan because they want health care avail­able to all Amer­i­cans and the pub­lic plan will be the only way such a plan would fly. If  you have no pub­lic plan, you have the sta­tus quo, which is nada.

 Another non-starter is the abil­ity for states to opt out. In red states such as Texas, where I live, the  state leg­is­la­ture would never pass  a pub­lic plan no mat­ter how much the vot­ing pub­lic wanted it. Why some state lead­ers, like our screw­ball gov­er­nor, think the state should pull out of the whole United States. Pub­lic health insur­ance in Texas if it is not man­dated? You got to be jivin’ me.

 I may not know a lot about the health reform pack­age but I know if you let states skate on major issues those states will never capit­u­late until the greater repub­lic decides enough is enough and some form of carrot-stick approach is used to bring the states into line. When I talk about carrot-stick, I refer to exam­ples such as the fed­eral gov­ern­ment with­hold­ing high­way funds until states pass stricter auto or pub­lic safety laws. The seat belt and 18-year-old drink­ing laws come to mind. Pick your own con­gres­sional blackmail.

 So we shall see what we shall see in the next month or so. I can’t see too far off in the future but I do have one pre­dic­tion that will prob­a­bly hit with near-perfect accu­racy. That is, I pre­dict every­one will not be happy when the health reform debate is done. How’s that for stick­ing my neck on the line?

By admin | Posted in Politics | Tagged | Comments off

How much hoohah will shooting by school cop bring?

November 20, 2009

 An offi­cer from our local school police force shot and killed a man near a school this morn­ing in what the Beau­mont Inde­pen­dent School Dis­trict calls “self-defense.”

... and to shoot center mass, apparently.

… and let’s see what kind of stir this will cause.

Police Sgt. Don Gor­don was on what was char­ac­ter­ized as a “rou­tine check” near the Paul Brown and Path­way schools when he ran into a dis­tur­bance, said a Beau­mont ISD press release. The shoot­ing hap­pened off the cam­pus near the inter­sec­tion of Pope and St. Helena streets
 A “black male” allegedly attacked Gor­don as the offi­cer pre­pared to inves­ti­gate the fra­cas. The police offi­cer “had no recourse but to pull his weapon and defend him­self,” BISD police chief Clydell Dun­can said in the press release. The 26-year-old who was fatally wounded in the shoot­ing was iden­ti­fied as Matthew Beck­ett of Beau­mont, accord­ing to the Beau­mont Enter­prise.
 The offi­cer sup­pos­edly used pep­per spray on Beck­ett before shoot­ing him, accord­ing to KBTV-TV. The news sta­tion quoted school dis­trict spokes­woman Jessie Haynes as say­ing Beck­ett appeared to be high on drugs. No other reports have sur­faced this after­noon con­cern­ing whether Beck­ett pulled a weapon on Gor­don, prompt­ing the offi­cer to use deadly force.
 This is the first fatal shoot­ing for the depart­ment, which began patrolling schools and areas near the schools two years ago. The agency has more than 20 officers.
 Beau­mont ISD has seemed to be con­tin­u­ally in the media spot­light, or crosshairs, depend­ing on how one see it dur­ing the past sev­eral years. The school dis­trict has an enroll­ment of more than 19,000. The dis­trict pays its super­in­ten­dent, Dr. Car­rol Thomas, more than $320,000 per year, which makes him one of the best paid school admin­is­tra­tors in Texas if not the most well-paid.
 Thomas and his advo­cacy of a multi-million dol­lar bond issue have been lightning-rods for crit­i­cism dur­ing the past year or two. Usu­ally, dis­cus­sions in online com­ment sites about Thomas and the dis­trict end up with the sub­ject of race. Thomas is black as is four of seven school board mem­bers. Some would say that shouldn’t come as a big shock since the pop­u­la­tion of Beau­mont is 47.2 per­cent black com­pared to a 44.1 per­cent white make-up, accord­ing to Cen­sus figures.
 One may only expect this shoot­ing, regard­less of what the facts from the inves­ti­ga­tion bring, will stir the BISD con­tro­versy pot even more. One also might hope for race not to inflame this lat­est inci­dent since both the police offi­cer involved as well as the vic­tim are both black. But one shouldn’t hold their breath. This is Beau­mont where every­thing seems racial these days.
 
By admin | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments off

A hair-raising Texas governor’s race?

November 19, 2009

 Hair could be the focal point of the race for Texas gov­er­nor in the 2010 Gen­eral Elec­tion. That is, such might ring true if Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry gets by U.S. Sen. Kay Bai­ley Hutchi­son in the Repub­li­can Pri­mary and if whomever ends up run­ning for the Demo­c­ra­tic nod gets beaten by Hous­ton Hair-care mogul Farouk Shami.

 Shami, who made mil­lions pro­duc­ing the Chi hair-care line, is sched­uled to announce his can­di­dacy today in Hous­ton for the Demo­c­ra­tic Pri­mary. He became a nat­u­ral­ized U.S. cit­i­zen in a rags-to-riches life after com­ing to the states from Jordan.

 His eth­nic­ity and sup­port of some pro-Palestinian efforts have raised doubts about whether he has a chance espe­cially in the wake of the Fort Hood shoot­ings, allegedly by a Mus­lim Army psy­chi­a­trist from the Mid­dle East. Of course, given Texas con­tain­ing a lit­tle bit of the world inside its bor­ders, Shami can always insist the Pales­tin­ian sup­port that he doled out was given to peo­ple in Pales­tine, Texas. The East Texas city is about halfway between Dal­las and Hous­ton. It also is the home­town of the star Min­nesota Vikings run­ning back Adrian Peterson.

 If any­thing comes up about any fis­cal or other types of con­nec­tions Shami might have in China, Italy or Paris, he’s got that cov­ered too, what with cities bear­ing those names within the Texas state boundaries.

 Perry ver­sus Shami for gov­er­nor? Expect some hairy jokes.

By admin | Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged | Comments off

Take your best job and shove it!

November 18, 2009

 Would you con­sider your job the best around?

 Even though I very much like what I am doing, my job, or jobs actu­ally, are nowhere near one of those con­sid­ered the best in the coun­try, accord­ing to CNNMoney.com. The online busi­ness mag­a­zine has listed what it con­sid­ers the 100 best jobs in the coun­try based upon salary, qual­ity of life and job growth.

 I did a quick inven­tory of all the full-time and part-time jobs I have had since leav­ing high school 35 years ago. Com­pared with many who are per­haps 10 years or so older than I am, I imag­ine I look like a prize-winning job hopper.

 Peo­ple used to have jobs and stay with them until they retire. These days, not so much. One major rea­son for job hop­ping today is because the com­pany wants you to go so that they may restruc­ture or self-destruct or what­ever. Still, I have had six full-time jobs if you count the Navy, and my four news­pa­per jobs along with my cur­rent (strug­gling) career as a free­lance writer as one job. I have also had four part-time jobs includ­ing my present one work­ing for the government.

 Not one of the jobs I have or in which I have ever been employed are listed on that top 100 list. Here is a quick run-down of what I’ve done:

    Assem­bled boxes in a chicken pro­cess­ing plant. Whee!/Navy administrative/clerical worker/Professional fire­fighter (worked part-time for awhile mov­ing mobile homes. Eeeeeh. and also had a part-time EMT job)/Regional EMS planner/Apartment main­te­nance worker/Vacuumer at car wash/part-time edi­tor of monthly music magazine/Worked three part-time jobs — short-order cook, bar­tender and secret shop­per (Dairy Queen detec­tive)/Mental health worker/Journalist (edi­tor, reporter, free­lance writer)/part-time gov­ern­ment job.

 It really looks worse than it is. Actu­ally, when con­sid­er­ing per­cent­ages, 82% of 35 years work­ing have been with three jobs, pro­vid­ing you count the dif­fer­ent stops I had as a jour­nal­ist as one, and I do. But none of my jobs, as I said, were on the top 100 CNN­Money list. Well, it doesn’t mat­ter. None of the jobs I held were what you call “money mak­ers.” But I have spent 57% of my adult work­ing life as a jour­nal­ist, which is what I wanted to “be when I grew up.” Oh well, I got what I wanted to be while not nec­es­sar­ily grow­ing up. So be it. And the two worst jobs: mov­ing mobile homes and assem­bling boxes in a chicken plant. It takes a spe­cial breed for those jobs and I sup­pose I am a breed apart.

 I have said in numer­ous job inter­views, and it is only par­tially blow­ing smoke up the interviewer’s ass, that while some might look neg­a­tively on my hav­ing worked so many jobs I feel that every expe­ri­ence I ever had helped me do the next job better.

 Speak­ing of longevity, I read in Elise Hu’s blog on Texas Tri­bune that long-long-time Asso­ci­ated Press pho­tog­ra­pher Harry Cabluck was one of those unfor­tu­nate few who were laid off yes­ter­day dur­ing that wire service’s per­son­nel purge.

 Hu notes that Harry, 71, was in the motor­cade when JFK was shot in Dal­las. He has been based in Austin for many years. A ton of trib­utes are being col­lected in Hu’s blog for Harry.

 I don’t know Harry well. I only was in his space twice. Once we talked for a few min­utes on the floor of the Texas House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives while wait­ing on some­thing or the other. The other time was quite a bit longer.

 Harry and I were among press cov­er­ing some­thing at Fort Hood. He had left his car at the south­ern end of the post and we were up at the north­ern extreme. I gave him a lift and was enter­tained by Harry along the way. What I remem­ber the most was his talk­ing about some cohort or acquain­tance of his — that and it was about a 20-minute drive and I really needed to use the bath­room. Harry said either the cohort or both of them used to spend time mak­ing up sto­ries about peo­ple they would see — total strangers – while they were dri­ving along. Harry gave some really funny exam­ples while we were dri­ving and, well, you had to have been there. I’m sure Harry doesn’t remem­ber that although I under­stand he has a pretty good mem­ory. I, how­ever, do not.

 Best of luck to Harry Cabluck in his future.

By admin | Posted in Media | Tagged | Comments off

Bow-wow-gate: The Japanese view

November 17, 2009
There he goes again! One wonders if the U.S. right-wing will lambast President Obama for what appears to be a bow to a child of U.S. Embassy workers in Tokyo. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

There he goes again! One won­ders if the U.S. right-wing will fusti­gate Pres­i­dent Obama for what appears to be a bow to a child of U.S. Embassy work­ers in Tokyo. (Offi­cial White House Photo by Pete Souza)

 My col­lege friend and some­times IT guru, Paul, offers via e-mail a bit of Japan­ese per­spec­tive in wake of “The Bow Heard Round the World.” I face­tiously speak of the uproar over Pres­i­dent Obama bow­ing to the Japan­ese Emperor dur­ing the former’s offi­cial visit ear­lier this week. Paul lives in Tokyo where he has taught Eng­lish for a num­ber of years. He is an astute observer of his sur­round­ings per­haps either because of or despite — per­haps a bit of both — the jour­nal­ism classes he and I had together at Stephen F. Austin State Uni­ver­sity. I still think the name of the insti­tu­tion should be short­ened to “Steve.”

 Paul observes that the left­ists in Japan, who object to the Impe­r­ial sys­tem, are the ones both­ered by Obama’s bow to the Emperor as com­pared to the Amer­i­can right-wing who are ticked off because they con­tend the pres­i­dent is being servile.

 My opin­ion, of course, is that any­thing Obama does pisses off the right wing. I used the old adage in response to Paul about the mat­ter:  “Some peo­ple would com­plain if they had a loaf of bread under each arm.”**

 Paul also points out that the Japan­ese left sees the Obama bow as “giv­ing sup­port to an out­dated and super­sti­tious system” although the Japan­ese on the street sup­port Obama and “can’t under­stand what the big deal is.”

 The Japan­ese view the bow as a hand­shake and con­trary to what Amer­i­cans might think is not wit­nessed that much in Japan nowa­days, accord­ing to Paul.

 “The Japan­ese don’t care if (Americans) do (the bow) because we always f**k it up,” Paul said. “It’s a Japan­ese thing. They are pleased to take the cul­tural first dance to prac­tice the handshake.”

 Given that a seem­ingly small por­tion of Japan­ese left­ists have their nose out of joint, the clamor over a bow­ing Obama is just a whole trunk load o’ noth­ing that the Amer­i­can right-wing class can use to get a few days of media. Okay, you got it. Now move on to the next ridicu­lous mat­ter you can find to crit­i­cize Obama and the Democrats.

 It all is just mean­ing­less dri­vel from peo­ple whose point of view becomes increas­ingly less rel­e­vant in a soci­ety that has tired of all the bulls**t.

**I’m not cer­tain where this say­ing orig­i­nated although I have heard it most of my life. I’ve also heard the vari­a­tion “pig under one arm and a loaf of bread under the other.” Both apho­risms, or plat­i­tudes if you pre­fer,” would nicely fit the Great Depres­sion era. Or per­haps, for some, the say­ings might work these days.
By admin | Posted in Politics | Tagged , | Comments off

The opposition proves they are right silly

November 16, 2009

 If the “loyal” oppo­si­tion to the cur­rent rul­ing party in U.S. gov­ern­ment is seri­ous about any­thing, any­thing at all, then per­haps they should start act­ing like it. Make that, they should start act­ing like adults.

 After rais­ing Hell about the administration’s right­ful pre­rog­a­tive to have alleged ter­ror­ists tried in New York where the 9/11 hor­ror hap­pened, the right now blath­ers about the president’s bow to the Japan­ese emperor.

 I didn’t like George W. Bush. But I don’t think his ene­mies attacked every breath he took, every move he made, every fart he pro­duced. I think the “loyal” (allegedly loyal) oppo­si­tion needs to get a life, or per­haps just shut the f**k up.

By admin | Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments off

Suit seeks anonymous commentator

November 13, 2009

 It isn’t often that I am encour­aged by a defama­tion law­suit. You see, I am pretty big into free speech, if you haven’t noticed. I also was once sued for defama­tion. It wasn’t pretty and the alle­ga­tion wasn’t true. A fed­eral judge booted the case out on its res ges­tae where it belonged.

 But the legal action I am talk­ing about is one that could help erase the scourge that cheap­ens mod­ern mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion and raises the nation’s stu­pid­ity quo­tient. That would be hate­ful and libel­lous open com­ments on arti­cles pub­lished on the Inter­net that are writ­ten by anony­mous correspondents.

 The case involves a Ken­tucky attor­ney who is suing Kentucky.com, owned by the Lexington-Herald Leader. A per­son using a screen name allegedly made defam­a­tory com­ments against this attor­ney. The lawyer is defend­ing a man charged with mur­der and vio­lat­ing a domes­tic vio­lence order. The attor­ney says she just wants the real name of the per­son who made the com­ments so that she may take fur­ther legal action. She is, how­ever, seek­ing unspec­i­fied dam­ages plus those for pain and suffering.

 The edi­tor of the paper said the per­son mak­ing the com­ments was banned from the site and that the com­ments were removed. The paper is con­tact­ing that per­son to see if they want to invoke their rights to anony­mous free speech.

 Lest you think I may show some hypocrisy here sup­port­ing other forms of free speech but not anony­mous free speech, rest assured that I am not. But there are defama­tion laws and libel laws. That I know for sure and even though I may not like those laws when they are mis­used against me to dig into deeper pock­ets, I feel those statutes are there for long-held prin­ci­ples against bear­ing false wit­ness against one’s neighbor.

 My agree­ment with this suit is for much less loftier rea­sons though. I sim­ply am sick and tired of see­ing a bunch of racist, igno­rant, idiots dom­i­nate these com­ment boxes, say­ing what they want about whomever or what­ever most often with­out facts to back them up.

 What is even worse are news­pa­pers and other media plat­forms that use sites clum­sily dis­guised as not a part of that media out­let which are used to start or build upon con­tro­ver­sies employ­ing sub­tle, but incitable mate­r­ial. See: race baiting.

 News­pa­pers, especially, should reflect the soci­ety that sur­rounds it. But papers should also mir­ror the respect­ful­ness and good man­ners that are at the core of a civ­i­lized society.

 I don’t wish for any finan­cial ruin for any­one in the afore­men­tioned law­suit. I also hope it don’t lead to judi­cial prece­dent that would threaten free anony­mous speech. Some­times, that is the only way some peo­ple can com­ment with­out fac­ing some kind of phys­i­cal or eco­nomic dan­ger. But I do wish such an action could remind those with some sort of a media mouth­piece — be it The New York Times or eight feet deep — that anony­mous speech need be respon­si­ble speech.

By admin | Posted in Media | Tagged | Comments off