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Happy Labor Day and be happy that we can be happy

A Wikipedia article about Labor Day points out the paradox of how the holiday weekend is known for big-time sales yet most retail workers do not get time off and also work more hours.

Labor Day is traditionally known as the end of the summer yet if you live here in Southeast Texas you know that’s a lie. The end of summer is usually in early November. That is known as fall, or more precisely, the week here in this part of the country which is between summer and winter.

It is more the time of the year and the luck of the calendar that means Labor Day this year marks the beginning of “real” football. When I say real I mean not the NFL preseason games which don’t mean a thing except to the coaches and players. Likewise, I mean high school and college football. One’s preference as to which comes first guides the order. I still like high school football best and particularly my old high school’s team. Go Eagles! I hope to see at least one game this year. College, I’m not so jazzed about. Money has made the collegiate-level sport so that it isn’t about anything other than winning. I mean anything! It’s like the NFL, except the majority of college players are not yet as good as pros and the play is not nearly as interesting. That’s just a fan’s opinion, of course. Conferences are being re-formed where its schools might be clear across the country. What was wrong with the good ol’ Southwest Conference anyway?

Labor Day is also about cookouts, the beach, the lake, parades, concerts, all manner of entertainment and having fun.

Lost in all that Labor Day means in the United States is the true meaning of Labor Day. President Grover Cleveland gave labor unions the holiday as a political ploy. Cleveland hoped labor would develop amnesia when it came to his having dispatched nearly half the Army to battle striking railroad sleeping car workers. The Army response to the Pullman Palace Car Co. strike in Chicago was crafted by Cleveland, who said the stoppage interfered with mail delivery. Thirteen strikers were killed. Historian Kenneth C. Davis says in this CNN article that labor kept the holiday and Cleveland was fired by his party in the following primary election.

Rights for workers, humane working conditions, child labor laws all came about from unions but the successes were neither overnight, nor were they always bloodless. That is what Labor Day is really all about. That, plus the fact that the day and the weekend means no work so people can sun themselves, barbecue or go shop until they drop.

So enjoy the weekend. Celebrate! And raise a toast to all those who labored before you.

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Ryan’s iPod doesn’t make up for all his whoppers

Two things I have learned while not watching the Republican National Convention this week is that Paul Ryan says his iPod playlist “starts with AC/DC and ends with Zepplin” and that Ryan lies.

Well, the first is certainly good. The 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman began his teen years in the 80s when both AC/DC and Led Zepplin were still relatively fresh. Although, one might wonder, as LA Times music critic Randall Roberts does, just what is in between the two hard rock bands on a device that holds more than a thousand songs? Did he also listen to the Brit invasion 80s version — Wham! and Culture Club? Was he fan of Milwaukee’s own “punks” the Violent Femmes? Or was he secretly into C & W or heaven help him, the local polka scene? Wisconsin — with its rich German and Pole heritage — even has its own Polka Hall of Fame.

All such is fun to speculate, especially if you are a music lover Wie I. Why I even like a good polka. But before we break out into a verse of “In Heaven There Is No Beer,” we must deal with the second part of what I learned about the Republican convention and Paul Ryan. That would be his propensity for not telling the truth, or not telling the truth to his ability. Oh hell, Ryan lies like a dead armadillo, meaning not only does he lie but he smells. I am not implying that he smells as with body odor. I mean he lies and what he says that isn’t a lie smells.

Fact-checkers have had a field day running down what Ryan uttered last night in his convention speech and cross-checking it to see if what he said was really true. Apparently, a great deal of what Ryan said was littered with untruths and omissions.

That a politician would lie is no great epiphany. All politicians bend the truth into whatever shape that fits their campaign. And think back over your presidential history. How many presidents have been elected because they have a superstar vice president? FDR? Ike? JFK? Nixon? G.H.W. Bush? Obama? On the other hand, some would-be presidents may have been hurt by their veep choice. Sen. John McCain comes to mind.

Certainly I will not vote for Romney-Ryan. But if I had to pick someone for president it would definitely not happen on the basis that his or her running mate likes some of the same music as I do. That other problem, with veracity? That wouldn’t help matters either.

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Help is on its way

Well, unless a freak wind accident causes an upset in my world overnight this hopefully will be my last Isaac post. I am sick of this storm mainly because it makes me ache. As I’ve said in this space many times before, low barometric pressure has a habit of doing that. Right now a very narrow outer rain band from what is once again Tropical Storm Isaac showed up on radar about 25 miles to the east of where I am. Right along the Texas-Louisiana border.

It is funny how geographic borders have a propensity for stopping weather. One of the local TV weather guys said we would get no rain out of this storm. But it seems to be crossing the border. Go back, you damn tropical rain! Your kind isn’t allowed in our partially-drought-ridden state! Egos.

I stepped outside and was hit by one little drop of rain. I don’t know if that will be it for our experience with Isaac, other than some pretty good breezes. But we may get some rain tonight. Or we may not.

But more importantly, at least for the folks who actually got hit by the storm, I counted more than two dozen of those big Asplundh bucket trucks parked outside the MCM Elegante’ Hotel here on the outskirts of Beaumont. Asplundh — pronounced “AH-splund, the ‘h’ is silent” — is the big tree trimming company. The trucks and its crews are waiting for conditions to allow them into areas hit by Isaac so they can cut trees blown into all types of precarious conditions by the storm. Believe me when I say, if you got hit by a hurricane, or ice storm or large tornado, you want as many of those tree-trimming trucks as well utility repair trucks, there and you want them there yesterday. That is because the sooner they get there, the sooner your electricity is restored.

So, help is on its way. Good news. From Texas.

 

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No Eddie Munster today. We are still pre-empted by Isaac.

What? Is he talking about that damned storm again?

Why yes. What else is there to talk about except the weather? I mean, I sure as hell don’t see a future in talking about the Republican National Convention. The giant infomercial. And just to be totally fair, the Democratic convention will be the same only with people wearing less expensive clothes. That is except for the movie stars and entertainers.

So yes, Big Boy, the weather is making my joints hurt. A hurricane as nearby as Isaac certainly does cause my arthritis to -itis. Or is it to arth? See the doctored GOES satellite picture below which showed now Hurricane Isaac about 30 minutes ago. Obviously, one can see the hurricane. At the left, bottom is a little triangle I made to, sort of, represent “The Golden Triangle.” Why didn’t I make it golden? I didn’t think about it. Beside, golden might be difficult to spot with the surrounding color. It’s called The Golden Triangle because the location of the cities Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange, Texas, all make a triangle when viewed geographically. The golden part had to do with the prosperity from the “oil bidness,” much of which started in this area upon the gushing of Spindletop in January 1901. Either that or it was from what color the skies were from smog until it was eventually cleaned up somewhat.

 

One of the cloud bands, whatever it might be called, from the storm passed over earlier when I was at work. The wind whipped up and whistled like a 50-foot tea kettle. Guessing from what the local wind readings were, I’d say maybe the sustained winds were maybe 20 mph, whipping up to almost 30 mph. Perhaps the winds weren’t that strong.

Even with those winds blowing by it is hot ‘n humid. Perhaps I need a trademark “Hot ‘N Humid ™ :” It will make you sweat, and how!”

I have been watching The Weather Channel, at least when the sound is off, and when the sound is off and a torso shot is visible of meteorologist Stephanie Abrams. Seriously, I have come to respect Stephanie as a broadcaster. She yaps a lot but she is multi-talented and seems to pretty much know here stuff. The Weather Channel has pulled out all the stops for Isaac. That is, unless it hits somewhere other than Florida, Alabama or Louisiana, and as I have mentioned before, especially New Orleans. If it hits far western Louisiana or far southeastern Texas, no biggie. Nobody lives there. I mean, I do, as does several hundred thousand people.

The storm coming on almost the anniversary of Katrina in 2005 has made-for-TV-drama written all over it. Plus, isn’t it always about New Orleans? Oh well, I’ve gone down that road before. My neighbors, thankfully, didn’t experience the many deaths of Katrina. In some way, though, people often feel a little of themselves die when they suffer losses as they did with their lives uprooted by first Hurricane Rita and later Ike.

Issac will probably bring more suffering to the north when the storm makes its way inland, however far it goes. And such systems can travel a long ways. I hope the wind we have seen today here in Southeast Texas is about the gist of Hurricane Isaac. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was not the case. I wouldn’t mind if it clouded up or even rained a bit. But a bit is something that one only sees a bit of when it comes to tropical cyclones.

So maybe tomorrow I can talk about Mitt Romney’s stretch blue jeans or his cloned-looking kids, or how Veep candidate Paul Ryan bears an eerie resemblance to Eddie Munster. But once again today, this space has been hijacked by Isaac.

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TS-almost-Hurricane Isaac: Where it goes nobody knows

Yes, I am still here. I am still keeping an eye on Tropical Storm-Almost-Hurricane Isaac.

Look on TV and you will see that everyone and their special porpoise says the storm will hit New Orleans. Well, of course it will hit New Orleans. I’ve said it many times before and with good reason: The media want to go to New Orleans. Not Cameron, La., or Orange, Texas, or Hardtime, Miss.

The truth is no one knows where the hurricane will hit. Oh, they — various agencies and colleges and the National Hurricane Center — all have an idea. Between them all they say the storm will hit somewhere between here in Jefferson County, Texas, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  Maybe not exactly. Maybe the forecasters have it down to a 250-mile radius of New Orleans. All three hurricanes I have experienced — well to be honest I slept through Cat 1 Hurricane Humberto and it sneaked up on just about everyone — during the past seven years here in deepest, darkest Southeast Texas were all predicted to land elsewhere. Sometimes, a couple of times and a couple of places elsewhere.

It was only the day before Hurricanes Rita and Ike that I decided what I would do. Rita — leave. Ike — stay. Both times I woke up about 6 o’clock in the morning to the news of “Guess what? There’s a mandatory evacuation.”  I kind of make calculated guesses about whether I should go or stay based on factors like, the speed and direction of the wind, storm surge, rain, what kind of shelter I have and do I have any reason to stay. As to the last question, the answer was yes, because I would be paid to write about the storm. But I questioned my shelter during Rita and as it turned out, the storm was as fierce where I “evacuated” to my brother’s home 60 miles away as it was at my apartment in Beaumont.

I am no hurricane expert by any means. My guessing as to evacuating might be dangerous, but I think I err on the side of caution, relatively speaking. If you know my life in total like some of my friends, then you would know why I put the “relatively speaking” proviso.

If I were to guess, I’d have to say the storm center of Isaac will land as a Cat 1.5 somewhere between Venice “The End of the World” Louisiana, and Lafayette, La. Why do I say that? Is that because of my adroit knowledge of hurricane modelling and tracking? No, I am operating on what is known in science and other sectors of society as a WAG, for “wild ass guess.”

Wherever it lands, I hope it doesn’t cause a whole lot of damage and that no one is harmed from this act of nature gone wild.