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Lege hammers home: “U can’t touch this!”

The Texas Legislature is getting down “M.C. Hammer” style as they open a new Special Session after the Regular Session ended. That first session was one in which Gov. Good Hair made sure he had bills covering all his political bases locked and loaded. Taking sonograms of fetuses before abortions was an emergency for legislators. The emergency of school funding in shambles was not.

Hammer’s 1990 song “U Can’t Touch This”came to mind because one of the bills that may be laid out for the Lege in the Special Session would prevent airport security people from grabbing people below the waist. Yes, the U Can’t Touch This Bill may rise from the legislative grave. I speak of the bill that would “create a misdemeanor offense for government employees who touch a person’s anus, breasts, genitals or body in an “offensive or provocative” manner before granting admittance to a public facility,” according to the The Texas Tribune.

The bill succumbed in what seemed like a sensible death in the Texas Senate after the federal government threatened to close Texas airports had the bill passed. Had such a restriction been passed for police, as they were about to search a suspect on the side of the road or in a law enforcement office or jail, I’m sure the bill would have dropped faster than one of my cell phone calls.

Offensive as it seems for Transportation Security Administration workers or those private security personnel who handle the same duties at certain other airports to search an old lady or a baby or even an airline pilot, no one seemed to really mind it so much after those planes hit the World Trade Center, The Pentagon and that field in Pennsylvania on 9/11/01.

I have never been frisked by a TSA person even though I’ve had my disagreements with some. Last week when I traveled to and from Kansas City I had a lengthy jaunt through the X-ray machines what with a CPAP and two computers. I ended up using eight containers to put all my stuff in before they went through the machines, leaving my shoes for last. The Kansas City airport (MCI) has its security operated by a private contractor. I don’t know why, but they seemed exceptionally nice during this visit. The lady checking the IDs was just as sweet as she could be.

These bills to prohibit “groping” by airport security are among the most ridiculous examples of Puritanism that can be found since Puritanism was cool. Such proposals make its Tea Party proponents seem like they might easily coexist with theTaliban.

So, my suggestion, and I think it one worthy of consideration, is to send all of these Dark Ages Americans to the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan and let them bear witness as missionaries to the Taliban. Who knows what either side might find. Just one thing to remember, no back slapping the Talilban and no crotch-grabbing the Tea Partiers.

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And a little child (well, teenager) shall lead them

Thankfully, there are some days when I don’t have to write too much to prove a point. That is true today. I will give the basics, present a link to read and then it’s up to someone else. That sounds good to me on this day when I just want to kick my feet up and maybe watch a little news or indulge in some other diversion.

My point concerns a 16-year-old Jersey girl (not of the MTV kind) named Amy Myers who has challenged U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, a possible GOP presidential contender, to a debate on the Constitution and American History. I saw Amy on Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNBC show and she certainly seems as if she could go head-to-head with the loopy Minnesota congresswoman.

The story linked above tells about how a backlash came from this story with “thugs” who support Bachmann or Sarah Palin or their ilk. These are people who leave very nasty comments about Amy and her family just because she is brave enough and intelligent enough to stand up for what she believes is right. Some people have even looked up where Amy’s dad works and have decided to harass him as well. Some of the threats are violent although likely the vast majority are those chicken s**ts who say all kind of nasty or racist or threatening things about people but don’t leave their name because they sure as hell wouldn’t want to have to stand up to some one who challenged them.

A bad, even terrible byproduct of the Internet is exposing the rampant cowardice that pervades our nation. Yeah, you heard me right! Cowards. When I wrote for a newspaper I used to get all kinds of calls from people who would be raising hell about this or that. But for the most part,  the conversations would have a civil tone because we all identified ourselves. But these “thugs,” as the writer of the linked story puts it are content to let there yellow streaks do their work for them. Some of those comments being left are of the type that the normal person would want to harm these gutless wonders who dare insult or threaten their daughters or granddaughters.

I don’t use my name here on this blog because I don’t feel the need to call attention to my life, at least that which I choose not to write about. If you read this blog, you will find that I choose to write about a lot about my life. It also isn’t very hard to figure out who I am if you don’t know. Not that I am prominent. You ask me who I am and I will probably tell you. I say probably, it depends on why you want to know and how you ask. It’s all pretty simple.

In no way am I expressing pity for Amy Myers. She made a big decision to stand up to a congresswoman and ask her to debate the Constitution and history, especially since Bachmann is an attorney (although I am not sure of the standing in the law community of graduates from Oral Roberts University, where Bachmann received her law degree. I would bet they have to have great oral arguments. You thought I was going to say something else, didn’t you? Dirty mind!) It takes guts to do what Amy did and is doing. Too bad she can’t be an inspirational figure for all those who disagree with her.

 

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When you’re hot, you’re hot

It’s getting to look a lot like summer. I don’t know how hot it was today. I am about to the point where I just as soon not know the temperature outside. It seems the more you know how hot it is the more you sweat.

Weather seems to be just one more thing to aggravate you as you grow older.  It’s as if I didn’t have enough things to piss me off. I’m becoming (am) a grumpy old man at 55. Just think of the potential!

I know, of course, I (we) only have myself (ourselves) to blame. When you stay inside an air conditioned world all the time, you are going to miss it when you step outside awhile. I doubt that it is no hotter than it was when I moved to this town the first (of three) times. This was 32 years ago come July. It was even hotter, for that matter, being in July. Ah the life after a four-year stint in the Navy and drawing that big, old unemployment check. I can’t remember what it was but I know it couldn’t have been a whole lot since I left the Navy as an E-5 making about $550 a month.

Now I could have just said: “No sir, I’m not going to take that government money. I’m going to get me a job.” I did that about a month and a half later as a firefighter. But it was nice to have it light for a little while. I didn’t bust my ass every day in the Navy although I did live a regimented life. Plus, I had lived, eaten, slept, showered, shaved and shined my shoes almost every day on a “tin can,” a.k.a. destroyer, for that past year. So I kind of enjoyed “the life.”

My typical day would start about 9 or 10 in the morning. It’s funny, I had no trouble sleeping late after having endured “Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up” over the 1MC loudspeaker each morning, even when I was off duty. I got so I could sleep through reveille or turn to (go to work) when I wasn’t working. Heck, I could sleep through a typhoon, a somewhat worrisome quality of which I still haven’t lost the touch, seeing as how I slept through the arrival of the Category 1 hurricane Humberto.

Each day I would get out of my little garage apartment. I would follow the state unemployment rules and go job hunting. Although it was plenty job hunting, to me, to apply at just one of the local refineries each day. I didn’t see any use in wearing myself out finding a job. What if someone called me and I would be plum tuckered out from job hunting?

Later in the day I would go see friends or my girlfriend, when that still happening, then it was off to The Keg, Fat Dawg’s, Lady Long Legs or one of the local places to quench a thirst or two.

Seeing the NBA Finals make me think of that time. I can’t remember who was playing, but I know that Queen’s “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” had come out earlier that year or the year before. It was one of the songs in the movie “FM,” which I saw that spring at a drive-in theater when I was was still on the ship in San Diego. But I seem to remember some kind of video montage at the end of the finals, Detroit or whoever it was who won, and it was set to “We Are the Champions.” We all thought that was pretty cool. Little did we know we’d still be hearing the same songs at ball games 30 years later.

Well, as usual I took off from a rant about the weather to my life as an unemployed ward of the state after serving my country. But I have to pose the rhetorical question: Which would be better, sitting around on a hot day thinking about how hot it was way back when or sitting around on a hot day thinking about all the good times and easy life way back when, which happened no matter the weather?

To each, his or her, own.  But I think the answer is pretty easy.

 

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Send us data. More data, Scotty!

Why am I exceeding my data limit on my broadband card? I’m sure I am not the only one to ask this question. I intend to find out though. I didn’t have this problem with my previous computer. I told the guy from HP that I guess I will have to sell this one to get my Dell computer fixed. It’s ridiculous. But I will be sparingly using the computer this week until I find out what the problem is and when the data cap is reset this weekend. I got a free Norton utility for year when I bought this computer. It may be one of the problems. Perhaps it’s a vast conspiracy! I kid, but more nefarious things have happened. Well, that’s it for today.

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The newest Gerald Ford class carrier? Why the JFK 2.0

Lt.j.g. John F. Kennedy on board the PT-109 circa 1943.

The U.S. Navy announced Sunday that the next nuclear aircraft carrier built will be the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79.) The Gerald R. Ford-class carrier will be the second ship to bear the name of the 35th president. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, served as a commander of the patrol boat PT-109 during World War II. The first USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) was decommissioned in 2007 after 40 years of service.

This news of the name announcement bears some significance to me because I had several friends who served on the first JFK. As a matter of fact, were it not for a friend’s dissuasion I might have served on the first Kennedy instead of what was at the time, the Navy’s oldest destroyer on active duty, the USS Agerholm.

Hearing tales from my friend Bob McCarthy of having to wait forever in line for liberty from the mammoth Kennedy, which had a crew of more than 5,000 officers and men, or any carrier for that matter, made me want to sail on something smaller. The reason I remotely entertained the idea of going to the “Big John” was that when I decided to seek sea duty I had run into my first division officer at our base’s Navy Exchange. The lieutenant was personnel officer on the JFK at the time and I had mentioned to the lieutenant that I was wanting to transfer to sea duty.  I could have ended up spending all of my Navy career except for boot camp in Mississippi had I not have put in for a ship

The lieutenant, who was in on leave, told me that if I wanted he could get me transferred to work with him. Funny, I also had a former division officer who was a chief warrant officer 4, who told me I could come work for him in his Seabee unit at Great Lakes, Ill. I told the LT that I really wouldn’t feel comfortable on a ship that was bigger than the hometown in which I was raised. I told Mr. D that I wasn’t very disposed to the winters of which I had heard of at Great Lakes, the place where I also went to boot camp. I felt flattered having two former officers appreciating my skills enough to ask me to work for them, but I decided to roll the dice and things came out just fine in the end.

I likewise am happy that the Navy has decided to name the new carrier again as a John F. Kennedy. His story as skipper of PT-109 and of his heroics after his boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer off the Solomon Islands is well-known in American history. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps medal for his valor as well as a Purple Heart for his injuries.

As president he was also an inspiring figure, even to someone from the East Texas Pineywoods who was only 8 years old when Kennedy’s life was cut short that long-ago day in Dallas.

The first JFK was the second carrier named for a president. The first was the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1947. Since that time, in 1968, eight more carriers have been named for presidents: Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Washington, Truman, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Ford. One nuclear carrier was named for World War II Pacific leader Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz. Two other carriers were named for longtime House Armed Services leader Carl Vinson and long-serving Senate Armed Services chair John C. Stennis.

One might debate the greatness of some these ships’ namesakes, but they all had in one way or another particular meaning to the Navy some more so than others. But as a Memorial Day thought, I think another JFK is a good name choice, especially more so than a Franklin Pierce, a Warren G. Harding or Calvin Coolidge.  And although others as well as myself might not agree, there may someday be a Richard Nixon (who was a World War II Navy officer), a LBJ (another Navy officer) and a George W. Bush (who landed on a carrier for an ill-advised celebration of the end of Iraq combat otherwise known as “Mission Accomplished.”