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Read my true confession on why Perry is still a candidate. Plus a link to Gov. Perry’s french cuffs from Al Jazeera

It is not often that I link to an article on the Al Jazeera online outlet. It’s not that I don’t believe that they shouldn’t have a right to run news with whatever spin they would like. After all, I even link to Faux News every now and then even though I think what emanates from there is straight from the Devil’s ear.

The Al Jazeera article in question is titled: “Beware of Rick Perry, the French cuff cowboy.” That was plenty to grab my attention then after a read and finding lines like: ” He possesses slightly less gravitas than a half-eaten bowl of chili,” made me believe that this writer speaks a lot of what, at least I think, is the truth. The piece is written, by the way, not by some wild-eyed, Caliphate-espousing jihadist wrapped in a dynamite sandwich but instead is by a very entertaining and thoughtful liberal, or progressive, named Cliff Schecter.

I will let you draw your own conclusions which, if you are for Perry you probably won’t like what you read. As well I think back to a time when, perhaps, we wouldn’t even had to worry about this prospect of … I’m sorry I just can’t bear to think of it or write it in print … you know, the office that Perry seeks … had I been more insistent.

Sometime back after the war had been going for awhile in Afghanistan and Iraq I was assigned to write about President Bush on one of the several visits of his I covered at Fort Hood. As is always the case with, Bush, hell, all presidents, a little scene was set up in a particular area which if I remember correctly was assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. That division was supposed to have spearheaded the assault on Iraq from an invasion based in Turkey. However, Turkish officials refused to allow the division’s equipment to be deployed from there and ships carrying the tanks and other war material floated around for some time.

The division finally made it to war even though their leader, Gen. Ray Odierno, received a lot of criticism for what many saw as “heavy-handed tactics” once they made it to Iraq. Apparently somebody loves him though. He will be the next Army Chief of Staff.

At this set-up area in which Bush was supposed to speak were various staged tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and other tools of war. Gov. Rick Perry showed up early in his black Suburban or whatever it was along with his Texas State Trooper plainclothes security men with their little earphones and dark glasses.

I can’t remember the PR flak who was there for Perry. He was not the head honcho but was one of the several people who were Perry “spokesmen” or “spokeswomen” at the time. We had a little time to kill so I observed Gov. Good Hair going around and inspecting all the equipment, looking like a little kid in a candy store. Of course, I couldn’t blame him. I like big machines, especially those that launch things which go “boom.” Several years before that I did a piece on new versions of Bradleys and the Abrams battle tanks that the 4th ID had just received. I was in much better shape then and they let me crawl inside both types of machines and look around at the consoles where missiles and guns cold be fired as well as where people rode in close quarters. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me drive one or — quite to my disappointment — fire off one the Bradley’s TOW anti-tank missiles, darn it.

If I am not mistaken, Perry had donned some type of military jacket, either a tanker’s jacket or flight jacket, I can’t remember which. That gave me an idea, of course, I kind of knew the answer I would get before I asked the question.

“Hey,” I told the governor’s PR Flak, “Why don’t you put a battle helmet on (Perry) and have his picture made inside a tank.”

That, of course, is the same pose which helped sealed the fate of failed Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

“No,” the flak said quickly. “I think he’s caught on to that.”

Well, I tried, but not hard enough I think today, after Perry has now been the longest-serving governor in the Texas history. Now, he thinks he can be president. Who knows maybe he’ll do something really stupid such as slapping a wounded soldier like Patton did or some other way to shoot himself in the foot. If Perry continues to go jogging with a Ruger .380 pistol while jogging, like the one he supposedly used to shoot a coyote, he is liable to shoot himself in the foot for real.

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Disasters sock it to the East Coast

Some post-Irene thoughts. I know Hurricane Irene certainly wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Does that mean the media and government should be battered for sounding a loud alarm? Well, opinions are, you know, like … (See Paragraph 3.) Luckily my niece and her family in Virginia and my long-time friend Sally in Western Massachusetts all came through Irene just fine.

I had to work earlier tonight so I haven’t had a chance to do all the post-Irene reading that I would like. But inevitably, you are going to have idiots who would bitch if they had a loaf of bread under each arm. With that in mind, I present an article about the those brave Hurricane Hunters who have to fly those old, durable WP-3Ds out across Mississippi Sound and into the eye of the meanest cyclones of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico that one would ever want to see. In this day and age, you have people who are so worried about all the ridiculousness whipped up about the deficit for the sake of politics alone that they would dare to blame people like the Hurricane Hunters who give us the early detection science on tropical cyclones.

And heavens knows we had plenty of problems during the bad old days of “Heckuva Job Brownie’s” FEMA. This includes during Katrina and afterwards when we had massively destructive hurricanes of our own down here in Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana with Rita and a couple of years later with Ike. But that doesn’t mean we should play catch with the funding for the disaster du jour as is being planned for by our geniuses in Congress like the House Majority Leader and weasel-lookalike Eric Cantor. Weasel wants disaster funding to be offset by spending cuts. What an a**hole. By the way, Brownie showed up on one of the cable networks over the weekend as a talking head of lettuce.

I remind all who care, hurricane season is not over. Luckily, Tropical Storm remnant Jose is heading into the North Atlantic. Meanwhile Tropical Depression 12 looks to be just east of Puerto Rico at the end of the National Hurricane Center’s famous 5-day cone.

Finally, last week’s earthquake in the Northeast also should remind us that we live in a large country where we have many different types of natural disasters which may try our patience and our federal, state and local governments’ abilities to respond.

Few of us, go through an earthquake and a tropical storm in the same week as did my friend Sally. She recounted in an e-mail how she had no idea what was happening when she felt last week’s shake-up.

 “My chair was rocking front and back and I looked at my legs moving and wondered if I was getting sick,” she said. “I looked up at the wall in front of my desk and it was just weird – moving.  Then I turned my head to the left and saw the coats on the coat rack swaying back and forth about 2-3 inches … “

Sally, who works for her city government, called 9-1-1 and later wondered if she was first to do so. I have never been through an earthquake so I could just imagine how discombobulated I would feel if I had gone through something like that.

People like Eric Cantor and others who don’t know what they’re talking about need to think before they speak. They first should walk in the shoes of others although if they walk in mine I suggest that in the very least they wear a couple of pairs of socks.

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Random Friday

Sometimes it is fun, for me at least, to just go random. Hopefully, it will produce less words than the theses I have written lately.

ΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣΣ

Hurricaneacomin’

The 11 a.m. (EDT) forecast discussion of Hurricane Irene by the National Hurricane Center indicated that the storm was appearing to diminish somewhat in intensity. That said, the NHC says the storm remains quite a threat to the Eastern Seaboard:

IRENE IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN A LARGE AND DANGEROUS TROPICAL CYCLONE AND HAS THE POTENTIAL TO PRODUCE DAMAGING WINDS…STORM SURGE FLOODING…AND EXTREMELY HEAVY RAINS ALMOST ANYWHERE FROM EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA NORTHWARD THROUGH NEW ENGLAND.

The ultimate intensity of the storm might not be as severe as some Nor’easters seen in the region from time-to-time. Nonetheless, I hope people will use as much good sense as is available to them with the approaching hurricane until it is time to sing, like Leadbelly, “Goodnight Irene.”

←↑→↓↔←↑→↓↔←↑→↓↔←↑→↓↔←↑→↓↔←↑→↓↔

Sailors perform a flight deck wash down aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington. Flight deck wash downs are performed to ensure the flight deck is clean and free from corrosive salts and to maintain the material condition of the flight deck surface. George Washington is on a patrol in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Justin E. Yarborough)

 

“Sweepers, Sweepers, man your brooms. Give the ship a clean sweep down both fore and aft! Sweep down all lower decks, ladder wells and passageways! Dump all garbage clear of the fantail … “

Such are the daily orders one hears via the 1MC, or ship’s intercom system, during life on a Navy ship. I believe dumping garbage over the fantail is discouraged these days with the ability to dispose of trash through more “green” methods. Nonetheless, the old Navy call is one on steroids in this great picture on a giant, modern aircraft carrier.

¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡¿¡

Happy weekend with a song

Finally, I leave you with the late Freddy Fender’s “I Love My Rancho Grande.” It’s the Spanish version, so get out your Spanish/English dictionary. Or, the hell with it, just dance to it. Ayyyyy Yiiiii!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-RRcnaakGw

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What does Peyton Manning’s neck have in common with no tattoos or piercings in Cam Newton’s future? More than you’d want to know

We’re talking sports today. Why? Because I said so.

Sometimes, I just get sucked into some sports stories. I don’t particularly care for celebrity gossip — who Jennifer Anniston is dating or what kind of knuckle-headed pronouncement was made by Charlie Sheen is not for me — so I guess politics and an interesting sports story are my kind of mini-fanaticism.

Two stories in particular have interested me within the last 24-to-48 hours. One is a controversy created by Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson concerning star draftee Cam Newton and whether the quarterback should have tattoos or piercings. The other story brings to surface the repercussions from the May neck surgery of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning. In this story, Kerry Collins, coincidentally the first ever draft pick of the Carolina Panthers, comes out of retirement to fill in as the Indianapolis quarterback while one of the NFL’s best players recovers.

Let’s start with Newton. He is black. He won the 2010 Heisman Trophy and led Auburn to the 2011 National Championship. Newton likewise won the Manning Award which honors the quarterback judged by the Sugar Bowl Committee to be the nation’s best in that position. Talk about your kismet, a word which I have been forced by this post to grab from the thesaurus. It is named after former Ole Miss and New Orleans Saints QB Archie Manning as well as his sons Peyton and Eli, the latter if you are unaware is the New York Giants quarterback.

All of the acclaim heaped on Newton in 2010 also came amid allegations that his father engaged in a “pay to play” scheme while the future Auburn star played at Blinn College, a junior college in Brenham, Texas. (Where one of my brothers and his wife lives. More coincidence? I think so!). Newton (where have I heard that name before?) was taken as this year’s first NFL draft pick by Carolina.

With all that out of the way, I now can elaborate what the latest controversy involving Newton is all about which is, as I said earlier, tattoos and piercings. Or, if you wish, the lack of those cultural “art” adornments.

Panthers owner Richardson, was a 13th round draft pick in 1958 by the Baltimore Colts (the team was moved to Indianapolis.) Happenstance by chance? Hey, all these coincidences keep surfacing as I write. Richardson was the founder and is majority owner of the Charlotte, N.C.-based pro team. In the context of how this story develops he could perhaps be seen as a “cracker” or a “rich old white dude.”

In an interview with Charlie Rose — like I am supposed to know him — Richardson said that when Newton and Richardson discussed the job of quarterback he told the young, black star to stay free of tattoos and piercings. The story really should be told in context so hopefully the one to which I linked above will suffice.

Somehow tattoos and piercings are culturally relevant to black people. I’m not sure how that works. I’m serious. So now keeping the, hopefully promising at an estimated $5.5 million per year, quarterback without tattoos and piercings makes Richardson look like a “cracker” or a “rich old white dude.”

Fade out. Fade into super-duper quarterback Peyton Manning — who ranks 3rd in all-time NFL passing yardage at more than 54,000 yards and behind Dan Marino and (maybe coincidence alert) Brett Favre — getting back into fighting shape after surgery on a bulging disc in the neck.

Collins, who battled alcoholism as well as having been in the past a publicly serial racial slurist or slurer, retired last month after having played for Carolina, the Saints, the Giants, the Raiders and last but not least, the Tennessee Titans. Bear in mind Archie Manning’s tenure with the Saints and that Peyton was born in New Orleans, plus the fact that Peyton and Indianapolis were waxed 31-17 by the Saints in 2009’s Super Bowl XLIV. Plus, Eli Manning is still the Giants QB.

Now Collins has once again risen like the Phoenix, or at least Brett Favre, as the Colts signed Collins to keep Petyon’s spot in the huddle warm because Manning still needs time to recover from his surgery. Signing Collins instead of putting backup quarterback Curtis Painter in the lineup has surprised a lot of folks including some who share the huddle with Manning. Star receiver Reggie Wayne is downright indignant at the thought of his teammate Painter being pushed aside.

Just a few words about these stories. A few, and if you believe that …

I have never been really big about folks telling others how they should dress or wear their hair or whether they should be pierced or tattooed or tossed like a salad. However, I joined the Navy with hair covering my shoulder blades. That hair went faster than an F/A-18 Hornet off a carrier catapult. Since that time, I have had all manners of dress codes. Some of them have been formal and precise, such as the Navy’s and that of the fire department where I worked for five years, others have been informal or just common sense.

Tattoos and piercings are not “my thing.” I have very close friends who have tattoos and piercings, some have both, some even have one or the other in what many would consider “intimate” locations. I’m not going to drop them as friends because they decided to get something drawn on their bodies with a needle or have some body part pierced.

I do care if something would happen, health-wise, to one of my friends from their bodies being multipricked and pierced. Health risks from these practices are probably not as statistically substantial as in the past. But they do carry some risk, however slight. In one specific instance I winced as an infection seemed to hang around a bit too long after a friend had her belly button pierced.

It stands to reason that if there is a chance something might harm someone from a piercing or tattoo, and if an employer invested $22 million over a four-year contract, the boss might have a legitimate reason for concern about what an employee might do to jeopardize that investment. Some jobs and sports forbid workers or players from high-risk activities such as NASCAR or motor cross racing. Or skydiving. Or trying to steal another player’s wife.

Whether Richardson’s concern about body adornments on Newton is paternal, economic or racist, I have no idea. I do believe that an employee, especially a new one who has yet to win a game or a playoff much less a Super Bowl, should exercise some amount of common sense. Throughout it all though, it seems the whole issue of race could be a figment (not pigment) of someone’s imagination. Who? Who who? Who who indeed. We certainly could use a wise old owl right now. Call Rice University. You know, Houston, the Rice Owls. Oh boy.

As for the Colts’ situation, I have genuine concern for Peyton Manning. I like him as a quarterback and as a media figure. He certainly comes off as a nice guy though hyper-competitive. But the latter is why he is one of the two best players in the league. I also have empathy for him because he has been plagued with cervical disc problems. His coaches have termed his latest surgery as “minimally invasive.” But no matter how invasive, a surgery with general anesthesia produces some chance of being “minimally lethal.” People sometimes are “put under” six feet of earth after a surgery during which they are “put under.”

One of the biggest issues surrounding the Colts signing Collins is that Indy did not seem to plan for the absence of their star QB. Why should they? I mean he never missed a game.

Well, the reason is football is a very violent sport. Enough said?

But the whole shebang, football, pro football, is about money. So in the end, it seems the people who run a team can do pretty well what they want until it affects the morale and efficiency of the team as well as it ultimately suits the greatest number of folks who shell out the bucks.

That, my friends, is how the cow ate the cabbage. And the cow was owned by Archie Manning and the cabbage was raised in a field by sharecroppers who may or may not have been Cam Newton’s ancestors and was located just outside of Baltimore where the Colts were once based and, of course, Jerry Richardson was drafted in the 13th round. I’m just saying …

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A new police chief in town? So how about the local media asking him some questions?

A new police chief has just been appointed for our city, Beaumont, Texas. Well, he is sort of new.

The new appointee is Major Jimmy Singletary who started his more than 40 years of law enforcement experience with the Beaumont police, serving 30 years before leaving for a federal position, according to TV station KFDM, Channel 6. I do not know the man although I have heard a little about him and all I have heard is positive.

Singletary currently holds the rank of major with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. The stories I have seen so far online from Channel 6 — which reported yesterday that a “source” confirmed the appointment — as well as the other local media have failed to mention a few important facts which should go into a story of such magnitude. Well, maybe it’s just early. I hope that is the case because when a city gets a new police chief, its citizens/taxpayers need to know a few of the basic facts. It doesn’t matter if they have two officers or “262 sworn police officers and 37 civilians,” as the BPD Website points out. So we are left wondering about matters such as:

How old is the new pick?

None of the news outlets say. PublicData.com, the paid database I use to search various records such as driver license and criminal histories gives the only James Singletary I could find in Beaumont as being 63 years old.

How much does the police-chief-to-be earn as a sheriff’s major?

Databases provided by the Beaumont Enterprise which does not mention this in its online story — the paper has a “paywall” limiting news to those who do not subscribe — indicate Singletary’s 2008 total compensation was $103,149.00 with the Jefferson County sherifff’s office.

What will Singletary make as Beaumont Police Chief?

Again, another good question. The Enterprise‘s database shows current Beaumont Police Chief Frank Coffin had a total compensation amount of $121,703.68 in 2008, the most recent year available for the figures.

A few notable crimes within the city of Beaumont have made headlines this year including the death of 36-year-old Beaumont Police Officer Bryan Hebert, who was killed last month after the officer was allegedly killed by a man involved in a police chase. The suspect, 30-year-old John Nero, has been charged with capital murder.

But it is the police officers themselves who have perhaps drawn the most scrutiny from the public, and a little from the local media. One particular incident was caught on police dashboard camera in 2007 in which Derrick Newman, an African-American who was being detained by Beaumont police after a traffic stop, was allegedly struck 13 times by an officer. That officer, David Todd Burke, was fired in 2010, having been convicted of official oppression. A Texas appeals court affirmed that conviction on Wednesday.

Officer Cody Guedry was also convicted of the same charge in that incident but was given a new trial. He is currently working for the Beaumont police as a community relations officer.

So I don’t know if our local media have asked or plan to ask of Singletary, but there are some questions that perhaps inquiring minds would like to know, such as:

Do you think Beaumont PD has a bad reputation and if so, what do you plan to do to fix it?

Where do your opinions fall on the controversy over whether police actions should be overseen by a citizen review board or one that acts in an advisory role such as the committee approved by the city council? 

Do you plan any major changes in how the department will approach its job? Any shake ups?

And finally, there are a couple of semi-personal questions that nonetheless need answering for a city’s people to gain the trust of its new chief. The first can be asked by reporters with a little tact. An honest answer by the new chief might go a long way in repairing harmed trust issues in the community between citizens and police.

Have you ever had use of force complaints filed against you? If so, how many and what were the outcomes and circumstances?

If the new chief is reluctant to answer such questions, which he really should not be even though it would not be unusual to have some, unfounded, use of force complaints against an officer who has spent as many years on the jobs as Singletary, then the media should go the Open Records route. Although I have lost much of the respect I once had of our only daily, the Beaumont Enterprise, they nonetheless performed well in sticking with a request Beaumont PD tried to derail on officer use of force documents. Perhaps the department does not keep records on use of force as far back as during Singletary’s first years with the department. But if so, they should make those records available because the subject is pertinent.

There are other people to be interviewed as well, of course, the officers of the local police union, sheriff’s deputies and former deputies and Beaumont officers who worked with or for the new chief. This is an instance where a “source” would be appropriately used if that source was very trustworthy. Others who would be of interest are local “gadflies” because they bring color to a topic that is too often bathed in “black and white” or “blue and every other color.” Oh, and don’t forget to ask Councilman Mike Getz, because he seems to be everywhere lately, including Jasper, where their own police department seems to be falling apart at the seams.

And there is this. Singletary, if he is 63, and even if he is not, he is not a spring chicken who should not be busting down doors and taking point in a SWAT raid. That isn’t to say he has or has not done this lately. I don’t know. But it is appropriate for the community to know this:

How long do you plan on sticking around as Beaumont police chief?

Even though all I have heard about the new pick is positive, I still believe the media needs to ask many questions of him and see if he answers those inquiries and what his answers might be. Perhaps you do not feel the same way, but I think that these are not insignificant questions. And believe it or not, we have a right to know.