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Texans find themselves Schaub-less. Take a deep breath, let it out …

If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all. Or I wouldn’t have no luck at all, if you’re into double negatives. However you say it, that seems the motto for my Houston Texans. The Texans, on a four-game winning streak and at the top of the AFC South at 7-3, have a habit of losing key starters just as their situation looks promising. First there was the NFL’s best receiver, Andre Johnson, sensational linebacker Mario Williams and now quarterback Matt Schaub. Johnson has been practicing and could be back during any future game but the prospects are less promising for Williams, with a torn pectoral muscle, and Schaub. The latter has a misfranc, or midfoot, fracture of the foot.

The sporting Van Pelts. Lucy, r, and Linus.

Plenty of nay-sayers say nay when it comes to former USC Heisman winner Matt Leinart taking over for Schaub at QB. Much of the derision stems from his Southern California roots where he led USC to a national championship. Like current Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez, Leinart has been labeled a “pretty boy.” And while photos of Leinart in a hot tub with a crowd of scantily-clad beautiful women doesn’t help his cause — I’m sure it wasn’t personally detrimental — the man’s got some talent or he wouldn’t be where he is today. Leinart didn’t get the job done at Arizona on his first pro stop, but on the sidelines with Head Coach Gary Kubiak, the backup has been in the spot to learn what he needs to know. Whether he applies it is the big question.

Something also to remember: The Texans are 7-3 now with a good many of those wins without Johnson or Williams. This is a big step for the Texans, a team that has never made the playoffs. A little faith in their abilities is difficult as they’ve dealt themselves multiple times the old “Lucy Van Pelt,” you know, come up like Charlie Brown to kick the ball only to have Lucy pull the ball away. But it seems a fan has two choices in such a situation. Either you stop watching or paying any attention whatsoever to your team, or you have a little faith. Well, there is a third choice, which is kind of waiting in between, while holding your breath. I will be doing the latter. I will take time to breathe however.

 

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Here is an idea: A wet and wild GOP debate.

One round was all that I could handle. I speak of the most recent Republican presidential candidate debate held on CBS. I did see co-moderator Scott Pelley, the CBS heir to the evening news throne, get spanked by Mitt Romney. Pelley told the Mitt that his time was up. It was and Romney called him on that. I bet whomever was responsible for that behind stage got taken to the woodshed by Pelley. But Pelley was wrong. Mitt was right. And I don’t care.

What I didn’t hear and what wasn’t said was perhaps one of the most important discussions to come out of this whole three-ring circus. I speak on the question of whether water boarding is torture. More than one candidate, including Mitt, said nothing. Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann were all for bringing it back. If they are so much for it, then why don’t they volunteer to be water boarded? That would certainly make the seemingly never-ending series of debates more interesting.

Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman spoke against water boarding. If only they could build a candidate that was the good parts of Ron Paul, such as his forthright stand on this and other civil liberties issues, plus many of the good portions that is Jon Huntsman, perhaps they would have a halfway sensible person running for president. Of course, Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman will not be the GOP candidate for president.

The president has reminded the country that he signed an Executive Order prohibiting torture using, among other methods, water boarding. Good for him. I mean, good for him signing the EO. And touting it. He might as well define good versus evil.

While they’re at it:

Good Hair, how much in Texas taxpayer funds has been spent on your security during this ill-advised run for presidential candidate?

Perry: Glub, glub

Congresswoman Bachmann, what kind of evil have you done in your life and have you ever cheated on your taxes?

Bachmann: Glub, glub

Godfather Cain, how many women who worked for you did you hit on?

Cain: Glub, glub

The next debate moderators might bring along their rain wear should the route taken include water boarding the candidates.

Host: And good evening, glub, glub.

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Happy Veterans Day whether your sacrifice was large or small

U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Mathew Petersen provides security during a four-day patrol through Nawa district in Afghanistan's Helmand province, Nov. 3, 2011. Petersen is a Navy corpsman attached to the Marines. Photo by Cpl. Jeff Drew, USMC

Today is Veterans Day, 11/11/11. I will leave the speeches to the speech-makers. I thank those who served, from those few who are still around from Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, to those serving all over the world these days. This picture above was just a random photo I picked from the Department of Defense Web site. It doesn’t say much about this young sailor, other than he is a medic. The Navy has long-furnished its corpsmen to the Marines since that component of the Navy doesn’t have its own medical care, or ships (not talking about boats) for that matter. These days, some folks from all service branches may go to a combat zone to serve as an individual augmentee, or IA.  Sailors also face combat on the high seas, whether it be searching for pirates or seeking weapons smugglers.

Speaking of IAs, I don’t know if that’s what they were called back in the day when I served. When I first deployed for sea duty and my ship first set out for the Western Pacific I volunteered for an individual assignment at Subic Bay, Philippines. It was a six-month stint as an Armed Forces policeman. That means I would be patrolling the streets of Olongapo where one could not walk without running into a bar or a hooker. This was when I first went to sea, as I said, I didn’t know anyone and tired of under way watches at sea which were four hours long and rotated around the clock. My watch was standing on the bridge, talking over sound-powered telephone with Combat Information Center. My job was to relay any radar contacts CIC picked up to the Captain or the Officer of the Deck. It was mostly pretty boring except for the time we left San Diego in a thick fog with inbound merchant ships headed our way, only to have the helmsman discover that we lost steering. Luckily the guy manning “after steering” was able to steer blindly from his little space below the fantail. It was hairy for a little while.

As it turned out, one of my fellow office mates got the job because I was deemed “too important” to the mission to go be a cop for six months. Too important my eye! What if I fell overboard and was lost to Davy Jones Locker? As it turned out though, I got to know some great guys and we had more fun than the law allowed — no seriously, we did — all over the western and southern Pacific. Our ship spent November and December and into the first week of January, including Christmas and New Years, in New Zealand and Australia. I guess by not serving  as Shore Patrol for six months in the Philippines and thus not getting my ass kicked by drunken sailors and Marines was my sacrifice.

I will leave you to think about your sacrifices or lack thereof. My burden was not all that heavy for me, thankfully. Still, all military folks share sacrifice whether it be large, as in with their lives, or small.

Happy Veterans Day.

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Traffic, traffic, traffic

Greetings from cloudy ol’ Houston. What always pops into my head whenever I enter this, the nation’s fourth largest city behind Chicago, LA and NY, NY., is how messed up the traffic is here. It has been that way for as long as I can remember and probably always will be that way.

The sheer volume of automobiles alone isn’t what drives me up a wall. It is high volume and poor signage combined. Oh, they have plenty of exit signs and highway designation signs (IH-10 etc.), the problem is you don’t see them until the point where you need to exit. The highway signs with arrows of how traffic should “get along” are painted on the roadways. I guess that is handy if you are the morning traffic reporter in News Chopper 2, or whatever.

It is time to eat. A trip to the neurologist at the VA is on tap tomorrow afternoon. I should get through just in time to catch the afternoon rush hour while heading east on I-10 back to Beaumont. Traffic, what a great invention, ya’ll.

 

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Uncertainty knocks me silly like a left hook from Smokin’ Joe Frazier

This afternoon I started off writing about the death of Smokin’ Joe Frazier — so long Smokin’ Joe. I also mentioned how things aren’t very happy in Happy Valley with the Penn State football program embroiled in scandal and it looking as if 84-year-old head coach Joe Paterno may soon find himself doing something else for the first time in almost a half-century. The latter stems from the indictment of former assistant Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky for his alleged serial abuse of young boys.

I didn’t work today so I listened to some of the sports shows on radio a little more than often. Check out the links I have provided and you will key in on what I have thought about today. Maybe you can make more sense out of things, more explicitly the Penn State controversy, than I can.

This afternoon I also heard one of the guys on The Blitz, a sports talk show out of Houston, complain about the excessive number of playoff spots in Texas high school football. I haven’t really thought about it but I read the University Interscholastic League — or UIL, the governing body for high school athletic and academic competition in Texas — rules and Fred or A.J. or whomever was griping it was was right. The amount of playoff spots are insane.

 “Conference 4A and 5A the top four teams from each district advance to the playoffs. The two schools with the largest enrollments automatically advance to the Division I bracket. The remaining two schools advance into the Division II bracket. There are two state champions per conference in Conference 4A and 5A.”

The numbers advancing to playoffs are reduced to three team for all divisions of 3A, 2A, and 1A, and top two teams for the two divisions of six-man football.  I noticed some of the area schools headed to post-season play. Check out the win-loss records of some of these schools:

Port Arthur Memorial (9-1) vs. Pasadena South Houston (3-7)

Kirbyville (2-8) vs. Rusk (3-7)

Port Arthur Sabine Pass (2-6) vs. Burton (8-2)

Burkeville (1-6) vs. Milano (9-1)

What the hell was the UIL thinking? I will be the first to tell you that practically anything can happen in Texas high school football although the sport and where it is played is not completely immune to the laws of probability.

I have given thought to these stories and this complaint about high school football, which may only piss off a certain number of Texans, although more high school football and not less usually reigns supreme in the Lone Star State. A common thread that I have unsuccessfully tried to weave this afternoon runs through these stories. Perhaps it is apparent to some and not others or to none at all. Yes, a link exists but putting these varied thoughts into one.
But I will not provide that bond. Not today at least. Somewhere along the way, the line broke. Or it went all a-which-a-ways. That happens sometimes. S**t happens. That is an inelegant term but it is true, as much so to a writer as to a beggar man-thief and perhaps even a street car conductor.
I wish that I could leave this little box with something of greater certitude but my certitude has just lost altitude.