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Parents, be afraid of your toddler. Very afraid.

Friends and neighbors, there is something certainly disturbing going on right now. It is scarier than Ted Cruz and Donald Trump combined. It seems toddlers are shooting their parents quite often.

This morning I read a news story that sounded familiar. It said “Mother shot and killed by her 2-year-old son.” I read the headline on story aggregator Google News. I had noticed for quite a while that some of my stories weren’t being refreshed. I often see articles two or three weeks old. I thought this was one of those articles.

It turns out that the story of the toddler shooting his mother Tuesday in Milwaukee was similar to a story I read last month. In that incident, a Florida woman who is known as a gun advocate was shot in the back with a .45-caliber pistol in early March.

The difference between the two stories was that the latest shooting proved fatal.

Patrice Price, 26, was reportedly driving a car belonging to her boyfriend who was a security guard. The child somehow got the weapon and pulled the trigger. In the Florida case, 31-year-old pro-gun activist Jamie Gilt told authorities that she had put the gun under the seat and the gun came out while towing a horse trailer with her  pickup. The toddler reportedly unbuckled his seat, then picked up the gun and fired it through through the seat in which his mother was driving. The shooting came just hours after Gilt wrote on Facebook: “My 4-year-old gets jacked up to target shoot,” the Washington Post reported. ­­

Just how often this type of accidental shooting occurs is not really clear. I saw one report say there were 41 incidents in which small kids shot a parent or someone else from October 2015 until present. Or maybe it was 41 this year. The fact it has happened twice in the past two months might spur those people who conceal carry to carry it better, at least in their automobile.

I first saw this happening a couple of times to be funny, not ha-ha, but rather in an ironic way. But parents aren’t being targeted by toddlers, rather children are the ones getting killed in more numbers than should ever happen. I have written here before that I was almost shot once as a “baby,” according to the family story. I have no memory of this, at least in my conscious recall. I think that is a good thing, I’m not sure. My brother John may have been 12 or 13 when he took a shotgun from a rack while visiting our cousins’ home and pulled the trigger. The shot went through the wall and missed me by inches, as the story goes. John died in 2014.

My nieces like to hear the stories of us five boys in our younger day. I really wasn’t around when all the mischief  was created as there was eight years between me and my next older brother, Robert, who passed away about two months before John. But during a family gathering the last time all five of us were together and were in relatively good health, we sat around talking and listening to the stories of our childhood. I brought up the story of my near hit and John’s near miss. I had always joked with him about it but he got serious this time and recalled how scared he and everyone was. One of my brothers remembered our mother saying at that time that she had never heard a sound as good to “hear that baby crying.”

I grew up knowing how to shoot. I like to shoot targets or beer cans. I don’t want to see guns gone. And I don’t believe we will ever see them outlawed, at least in my lifetime. Like I have said many times about total gun control, that genie’s out of the bottle. But, and I have argued with my friends about this, that some sanity is needed in gun policy. I don’t expect NRA to be of any help. I don’t know what it will take for some self-control to keep people from accidentally shooting others, whether at home or in a crowd when someone tries to be Dirty Harry. Maybe I am wishing the impossible. Then again, I was almost a goner from accidental shooting. I can’t imagine how my family would have survived such a tragedy. But we, I, was spared.

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Not that super Tuesday

The primary in five northeastern states are ho-hum no matter how cable news try to put lipstick on a pig

The pig is GOP candidate Donald Trump. Should I call Donald Trump a pig? Why not. Trump calls his opponents insulting names or engages in personal insults, such as his remarks yesterday that the eating habits of John Kaisch were disgusting. If Trump wants to talk disgusting, its definitely a case of Donald pot calling the Kaisch black. One will not have to search far and wide to find instances of The Donald engaging in the disgusting. There are so many instances that I will not take the time to direct readers to a link.

Likewise, one must need look far and wide to find a story that gives a chance to the alliance between Cruz and Kaisch. That is probably true but such a partnership working would undercut the talking head class and their Trump fixation.

Still, the networks play this “Super Tuesday” — every other Tuesday primary also was given such a moniker by cablet outlets — which is actually less than super.

As Washington Post columnist Philip Bump asserts about the remaining Republican candidates, “the three are not thoroughbreds, they are sloths.”

The race has been and, even more so today, remains about process. The primary elections seem even less important than early in the campaigns. Delegates are the name of the game and there is no given that even delegates will be of that much importance, especially if Trump wins the delegate count.

Donald Trump has shown lately through his speeches and actions that his campaign is slowly running off the tracks. His alleged campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was reduced in status after the accusations that he assaulted a reporert at a Trump rally. Paul Manafort had been picked to supposedly manage the GOP convention in Cleveland  this summer, yet Politico reports that Lewandowski was back in the saddle after attempts to make Trump look “presidential” were rejected by the candidate. CNN veteran political analyst John King says he has seen campaigns shuffle personnel during the years he has covered politics, dating back to his time as the Associated Press political correspondent.

Who knows what will really happen? I don’t expect we will know anything for certain until a Republican candidate is anointed in Cleveland.

Oh and as far as the Democratic contest, Hillary hasn’t had any real challenge as of late. Bernie Sanders and his campaign has seemingly run out of steam. Maybe he is just selling a vision at this point.  I am no Hillary fan but I don’t want a Republican to win the general election in November. I hope Sanders will soon feel he has sold that vision and help the Democrat ticket.

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What’s the fuss over Prince’s death? Life.

Some are probably wondering out there why such a “fuss” is in progress over the death of Prince. The musician, singer, songwriter, all-around celebrity died Thursday at his Minnesota home at age 57.

I wasn’t a great Prince fan. I heard many of his songs on the radio during the mid-1980s. The song of his I like the most was “Kiss.”  The tune incorporates R & B, soul and rock and roll. Even if you didn’t like his songs but really appreciate music as I do, you have to admit he had way out-sized talent in his small 5-feet 2-inch body. The guy was a genius in more ways of one.

The whole thing about Prince changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol, then being known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, was mainly disdain for his recording label. The change was something he was ridiculed over. His description of events were that Warner Brothers had taken his name and trademarked it, something he reacted to by painting “SLAVE” on his face. When he signed a new deal, he became Prince again.

As goofy as it all sounds, mystique was one of the reasons he was so endeared to his fans. I can dig that. In one way or the other I have re-invented myself a time or two.

Every generation has a figure, a rock star or band, which might define those times. For the older generation it was Sinatra. In more recent times, say for the last 50 years, it was Elvis or the Beatles. I am reading a book now about someone who really identified with Nirvana in the 90s. I never really got what they were saying. I like some of the songs, “Smells Like Team Spirit, which is a great rock song. I can see where the younger or young at heart might consider this biggest Nirvana hit an anthem for the times.

This has been a particularly bad year for renown musicians, having lost David Bowie, the Eagles’ Glen Frey, Merle Haggard and now Prince. The first three were all of a certain age, all of whom spent many years in music and their original fan base were roughly the age of the musicians or perhaps younger. Yeah, a lot more where they came from, a cynic might say. Prince was only 57. “Only” 57. I am 60 and people say 60 is the new 50. Whatever.

Long ago, it seemed you would hear someone with a hit record. They might have another or even more. Then you might never hear of them. These days with multi-media forms and the internet, practically no musicians never go away. Even after they die. That is good, well, as long as the music is good. People need to hear the music they want to hear. They need to sing in the shower or rock out on the commute home.

While we mourn the past, it seems as if celebrating today — as in the moment — is a logical segue. Whistle while you work, or sing along as you play.

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It’s flooding down in Texas …

Ah, just as the 1982 Supertramp song “It’s Raining Again,” declares, it is raining once or maybe twice or perhaps even three times again down here in the sodden Southeastern part of Texas.

It has actually flooded in some parts. Houston has largely shut down today as officials say this is the “rainiest day ever, before noon,” according to online magazine Slate.

The many-times lifesaver of urban life in Houston, TranStar showed late this afternoon that water was still standing below 1-10 West, the Katy Freeway, only five miles or so from what  is known as the widest highway in the world.

This still from highway cameras on the Katy Freeway just outside of Houston just after 4 p.m. shows water below still standing. Photo from Fair Usage by TransStar.
This still from highway cameras on the Katy Freeway just outside of Houston just after 4 p.m. shows water below still standing. Photo from Fair Usage by TranStar.

I have been off work today. I had intended to do some work today, including a safety inspection but the other half of my inspecting was prevented from flying from Dallas to Houston or Dallas to Beaumont. I was supposed to be off work today. I didn’t even notice it until I got up and looked at my work calendar that I found I shouldn’t work today. It happens sometimes.

A quick calculation tells me I have lived, on and off, about half of my 60 years in this part of Texas. I have been through about four or five hurricanes, two of them pretty nasty. Plus, the subtropical area in which I live averages between 58-60+ inches of rainfall per year.

But I cannot recall a year that has had the amount of rain over several rain events since I have lived here.

Last month saw some exceptional flooding on the Sabine River between Texas and Louisiana where I was raised. Some 12 or maybe more inches of rain fell over the area. But worse, hard hit was the area to the north of Toledo Bend Dam, the largest such impoundment on the Sabine and the last dam before the river meets the Gulf of Mexico.

Toledo Bend Dam and its reservoir is the fifth largest man-made lake in the United States. The dam spans the Texas and Louisiana border. I remember when my Daddy and I crossed the Sabine near there to attend the groundbreaking for the facility back in 1960. I don’t remember a whole lot of the day but I do remember crossing the river in a boat provided by our local fire department. The site for the ceremony was the type of such that one would expect to see in the South. There was plenty of barbecue, several local high school bands, and politicians out the wazoo .

Governors Price Daniel Sr. of Texas and Jimmie Davis of Louisiana were also there. The bands played a rousing rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” when Davis was introduced. It was Davis, a gospel and country singer, who popularized the tune on record in 1940. To add a little perspective, Daniel’s son, Price Daniel Jr., was later elected as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. After leaving office, he was later allegedly shot and killed by his wife, Vickie Daniel, whom he first met while she was a waitress at a Dairy Queen. She was acquitted of murder in the death of Daniel Jr. in a spectacular trial which was recounted in a book and made-for-TV movie.

Ten years later after dirt was first turned, in 1970, the massive reservoir, dam and power plant were finished. It was quite a feat for a facility of that size to be built without the help of the federal government. Both Texas and Louisiana have Sabine River Authorities.

US Geological Survey scientist Jimmy Hopkins takes a stream stream flow measure in Bon Wier, Texas, during the March 2016 flooding. USGS photo by Jody Avant & Jeff East
US Geological Survey scientist Jimmy Hopkins takes a stream stream flow measure in Bon Wier, Texas, during the March 2016 flooding. USGS photo by Jody Avant & Jeff East

Since Toledo Bend Dam has operated, flooding has been at a minimum down river along the nearly 90 miles to the south along Newton County. The same in most cases applied to  Vernon, Beauregard and Calcasieu parishes in Louisiana which are across the Sabine from Newton County. The river then continues on through Orange County and the port of Orange and onto the junction of the Sabine with the Neches River where the salt-water  Sabine Lake empties into the Gulf.

The exception to the flooding has been in low-lying areas where folks have settled on the river banks near Deweyville in southernmost Newton County. However, the March rainfall caused not only severe flooding in Deweyville, but also along the river just south of the dam and all along the river along Newton County and the three Louisiana parishes. More than 5,000 homes were flooded in Deweyville and the surrounding areas.

Some residents, especially those of my age and younger, recall the Sabine River as only endangering a small portion down river from Toledo Bend near Deweyville for flooding over the years. Many, like myself, had mistakenly believed that Toledo was built for flood control. It turns out that it wasn’t. The Sabine River Authority of Texas pointed out in the wake of the flooding that the dam was only built for water supply, electrical generation and recreation. A number of those who were flooded were incensed that, even though weather forecasts had called for such a huge amount of rain along the Texas and Louisiana border, the river authority did not open the gates of the dam which some victims believed might have prevented the flooding. The Texas river authority said that the law prevented the opening of the gates until a certain lake level had been reached. So, the gates did not open until the lake reached the level, which by then, contained a much increased volume from the rainfall.

A group of residents whose homes have been destroyed by flooding have met with attorneys to consider a class action lawsuit against the Sabine River Authority.

Perhaps the March 2016 flooding is of the type that is called by government planning and emergency officials a “100-year” or even “500-year” flood. But one must consider the rains this area has experienced today, including flooding that brings Houston — some two hours away from the Sabine River — to its knees. It seems at times that is just too foolish to try and outguess nature.

 

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Welcome to the Cold War II: How to prevent killing annoying foreign military forces

And so it goes, we are officially into Cold War II. I never even got my certificate for serving in the first Cold War. Perhaps this morning Vladimir Putin got really hopped up on vodka and Red Bull. There has to be some reason why the Russians would send two unarmed fighter jets for strafing practice against a U.S. Navy destroyer.

Whatever the reason that is what happened Tuesday. At one point the Russian warplanes were flying within  75 feet of the guided missile destroyer U.S.S. Donald Cook. The Military Times reported that the Cook crew members saw the plane within 30 feet of the destroyer.

The ship was practicing deck landing drills in the Baltic Sea with an allied helicopter, reportedly of Russian origin, according to an official Navy news report. Some media said the helicopter was with the Polish military.

A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft makes a low altitude pass by the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. (U.S. Navy photo)
A Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft makes a low altitude pass by the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea. (U.S. Navy photo)

“In my judgement these maneuvers in close proximity to Donald Cook are unprofessional and unsafe,” said Adm. Mark Ferguson, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa.

The Navy issued a statement saying:

“We have deep concerns about the unsafe and unprofessional Russian flight maneuvers. These actions have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries, and could result in a miscalculation or accident that could cause serious injury or death.”

Whether the pair of Russian SU-24 jets were 75 or 35 feet away, having an event with an aircraft — regardless of whether they are U.S warplanes or those from another country — when you don’t expect it can scare the hell out of you. I remember an exercise when I served on a destroyer somewhere out in the Pacific. We were steaming not far off our port side by the carrier U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. I was kicked back on the fantail watching the stars when all of a sudden this fighter appeared out of nowhere. It was screaming above our ship probably 50 feet above the stacks and radars. I only saw it for a few seconds, when all of a sudden its lights came on and the jet’s pilot kicked the plane in the ass and it was gone faster than it appeared. My guess was that the plane was a F-14 Tomcat launched from our neighbor, the bird farm that was affectionately known — sometimes — as the “S**tty Kitty.” No matter from where the loud jet launched, the aircraft certainly got my attention.

I likewise recall the first time our ship went to our “home port away from home port,” Subic Bay, Philippines, out of our starboard office porthole, we noticed that  some merchant man flying the Soviet Union flag was following us. Our CO decided to make a game of chase. The destroyer was brought about, passed the ship and turned back to follow the U.S.S.R. vessel until we got closer to port. Such interaction with Soviet ships and aircraft back in the day was routine.

This event was a little more menacing than in the Cold War I days. It looks like either Putin wants to play — with fire — or he is looking to start something. That isn’t a good idea either way. The Commanding Officer of the Cook stayed cool, which was good, because shooting up unarmed Russian planes would surely have stirred up a hornet’s nest, no matter that the planes were endangering our ship.

Perhaps that isn’t fair. But what is fair isn’t usually a large consideration when it comes to military forces, especially the biggest ones.

Here is a good quote I found from Navy TImes about why the Cook didn’t shoot:

“You don’t get to kill people just because they’re being annoying,”said retired Capt. Rick Hoffman, who commanded two frigates during his time in the service.