Posted on

Bless our dogged cops

What a handsome fellow this Beacon, decked out with a flag kerchief and a U.S. Marshal’s badge. You can print out a trading card with Beacon provided you don’t have a photo editing program guaranteed to drive you into running fits — what my Dad used to call something dogs did when they went crazy. I never saw a dog into running fits, by the way.

Beacon failed "guide dog" school because of a fondness for chasing squirrels. But I mean, who can blame the fella? His loss is the US Marshal's Service gain as an explosive sniffer.

I never saw a dog with a badge, well, not a four-legged kind until my first news assignment with then el presidente Jorge W. Bush. The dog was, if I remember correctly, an ATF dog-agent-dog and had a nice badge hanging from his neck in a leather case. I didn’t even have a badge to wear that time. I didn’t need no stinkin’ badges! Later when on a couple of occasions I was a local pool reporter I had a stinkin’ badge made out of cardboard. I still have a couple of them. Well, one is cardboard and the other is cardboard with a picture of Jorge driving his “pick-em-up truck” on one side and the White House, if I remember correctly, on the other. The badge is laminated. Ain’t I something?

Dogs are about the best thing with which one could associate except a good girlfriend (lady friend, female friend, I should maybe say that I now am age 55.) The latter is especially true as my dear, late friend Waldo Miller used to say  as long at the lady “drives your pickup for you and feeds your dog.” I always had to add as long she would also open your gate for you. I learned this living out in the country on Kingtown Road and had to either open the lock at the end of the heavy chain on my gate or have someone else to do it.  But I am getting way off course.

I love dogs. I have had trouble with a few, mostly little farts like the one who used to live next door to Waldo’s place when we were in high school. This little mutt would come out and sink its teeth into my ankle. It’s owner was a lawyer who was off and on our hometown’s district attorney. I’d complain about the little dog but mainly just inquire if it had its rabies shots. It had supposedly.

There is no doubt why TV, especially local TV news audiences love stories about police dogs which are turned into as much human as is possible without giving them a credit card.  We are a society which has long looked at animals, especially domestic ones, through an anthropomorphic lens. (Thanks so, so, much to the Beaumont Public Library Reference Librarian, who quickly came up with this word I was trying to remember but couldn’t. You rock!)

One peculiarity of modern news media is making police dogs into “K-9 officers.” I mean, it’s cute and all. And it’s police lingo which especially young reporters get hooked into early and will not shed unless they have a well-meaning but mean ol’  editor with a dislike for lingo. I covered the police beat quite a lot in my years as a reporter. I have to admit that it took quite awhile to get rid of an indirect quote from an officer who says a victim was “transported” by “Lifeflight” or who was “Lifeflighted” as opposed to just writing that the injured or wounded person was flown by medical helicopter  to  such and such a hospital.

Thus, “Officers and K-9 units, searched for hours.” That is okay if the K-9 units included a human and a canine.  But to consider  a dog as a “K-9” unit sounds odd if you think about calling old “Beacon” above, a unit.

“That unit sure can sniff out bombs.”

“Have you ever seen a unit strike such a handsome dog pose?

“Will you please get someone over here pronto to clean up the crap just taken by that unit?”

I have known a few police officers who trained and patrolled with dogs and would have just as soon spent their entire career riding the roads with their four-legged, friends. Dogs don’t tell you their dating problems, not usually at least. Dogs don’t  mind if you skipped a shower after an all-night bender unless you are teetering over the edge on your job. I used to work across the street in a small town where one of the police officers had a well-trained black Lab that was just remarkable going after lime-green tennis balls scrubbed with crack. I never actually saw the dog, whose name I have now forgotten, work catching those who transported weed or cocaine up U.S. 59  north of Houston. But Don, the cop who worked across the street from my office, would let me know whenever the black Lab would make a good score.

Personally, I think the so-called “war on drugs” is a waste of time. That is, at least a good portion of it. I think marijuana should be legalized. Other drugs should be carefully examined for their legality or illegality.  This “war” has caused so many lives to be ruined, ended, it has resulted in so much prison space needed for bad people, not sick or addicted people, to go missing.

That’s just me, though. I have a tremendous respect for the vast majority of the police officers in state, federal and local governments who risk their lives whether their threats come from drugs, greed, stupidity, insanity, politics, terror, or whatever. I include the “K-9 units” even if they are just dogs and live a dogs life.

I hope the dogs go home just as safely as the guys and ladies who wear the badges return home each day. That’s about all I have to say today. Hope you all, both two, four or however many legged people read this, have a great weekend as well. Wuff!

Posted on

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain

Brilliant splashes of yellow and red paint up the radar I have been watching from the KHOU-TV Houston Web site. It looks as if dumb luck doesn’t stop it, we may get a nice shower for a little while over here in the southeastern most corner of Texas.

People you know and some you don’t say as you pass each other by, “looks like it might rain.” To which you answer “I sure hope so.”

I am not a farmer. I’m not planning a picnic or going to a kid’s ballgame. I am not worried about it raining and I am not worried about it not raining. But I wish it would rain.

Some folks have bad moods when skies are continually overcast and rainy they have to end up inside. I get bummed out when it goes months without normal rainfalls, which in my area amounts to an average near 60 inches per year. I have to go to the window to see if it is raining in the middle of the night just because it is a thing of beauty I feel I should not miss. I feel cheated when  I awake in the morning and see that it rained cats and dogs overnight and I missed it.

This has been a pretty bad drought we have gone through lately. The fire danger has been worse than I’ve seen it in quite awhile. It is not the worst drought I can remember. But it is bad enough and I wish it would rain.

The radar is showing a pretty good swath of rain falling from south of Tyler to Houston to down along the Texas Coastal Bend into portions of Mexico to the north of Nuevo Laredo. I’m glad I am not driving in Houston right now. The streets and freeways can get a bit dicey in the rain. To the east we wait and watch the radar as the rains continue and, hopefully, continue to continue east. Maybe it will keep on coming and the rain expected tonight and tomorrow will also come.

Technology tells us some rain is on its way. It’s good news to hear in a drought. It is good news for those of us who like those rains which get fed the Gulf tropical moisture. Let it rain. The bells and whistles and radars and TV weather gods all tell us the rain is coming.

I sure hope so, because I wish it would rain.

Posted on

Keeping the past under your hat

Why I ain't got nothin' under my hat. Why do ask?

There is no better place to get a monumental snapshot of America in the Depression-World War II years than on the Library of Congress Website. This photo, simply titled “East Texan,” was taken in Jacksonville, Texas, in October 1939 by renown photographer Russell Lee as part of the Depression-era federally-funded Farm Security Administration documentation project. If you can’t see the worth in this federal program through works of art such as these, then you probably just have no real appreciation for history. Lee would later become a professor of photography at the University of  Texas in Austin.

Posted on

Like outsourcing? You’ll love government outsourcing.

“The only thing I would ever want outsourced is this hangover.” — Billy Bob Jobob

No one that I know ever said the above, but they could have.

Outsourcing is one of those “lightning” words. It has the tendency to make the hair stand straight up on your neck just before it knocks you flat, but only after it bores a hole in your skull and blows out the souls of your Nikes.

Ask the average Joe on the street what’s the first thing that comes to their minds upon hearing the words “outsourcing,” and they’re liable to say “India” or “Bangalore.”  To many Americans, too many jobs have been outsourced overseas and the fact is only made worse when you end up with a soulless android that puts you on hold for hours and whose most favored word is “no.”

That is my take on outsourcing as well. But there is domestic outsourcing of the type used by governments because we have ended up with leaders who believe “business” is the way to run the world. Today, it is common to hear a candidate for political office boast that they “ran a business” with X number of employees and a budget of $blank, blank, blank per year. They ran a canning plant. Or a foundry. Maybe they ran a small tech firm. So that entitles them to run a government. Right?

Well, let’s see, can  Mr. Can Man run a fire department and an EMS service and a police department and a water department and a parks and street department of the type he will be asked to help run as a city councilman? Does ensuring a furnace operates just right and overseeing operations which include the molding of metals are made without the employees burning themselves to death guarantee  Mr. Foundry Dude can run a school, manage its curriculum, and teachers and football team?  Would building a better hard drive be a prerequisite for Techo Geek to ensure his congressional constituents get their VA or Social Security check or that he or she could know what is best for the nation’s financial and military establishments? All of these are pretty obvious.

Government and governing that government is a whole different ballgame.

Therefore, it would stand to reason that just because someone is a “bidnessman” does not automatically qualify a man or woman to properly lead, in some form or fashion, a government.

And likewise just because someone has a successful chain of travel agencies wouldn’t specifically make it the best fit for helping a government agency or agencies in assessing and managing their travel needs. But that old outsource bug has already bitten some of our governments long ago. Going on an official trip for a federal agency? You have to use the specified company and their computer software or Web site. Doesn’t corporate solutions make things run smoother, faster and less expensive? Not always. Perhaps not at all.

Some agencies also outsource certain functions, such as payroll, to other federal departments. That isn’t particularly bad although if you need something or a want a question answered the solution may not be just around the corner.

The general public, including public workers, think grueling waits and frustration in dealing with a government agency stinks. It’s called “bureaucracy.” Okay, just imagine that not going anywhere bureaucracy when you are forced to deal with someone from a private company call center with people who know nothing outside the piece of paper over which the two of you discuss?

Fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with this bunch in a few years but I once had to fight my way through what I think is called the Debt Management Center of the Department of Veterans Affairs. I had owed some back bills and the money was taken without my knowledge from federal checks. These were among the most confounding phone people with whom I have ever dealt. These people told me, true or not I am not sure, that they were not allowed to communicate with the personnel at the VA hospitals which I supposedly owed. Does that sound like a shining path to financial solvency or what?

There are other problems beside inefficiency and bad manners that make outsourcing not always the best source for the government or for those whom it serve.  A study by the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank that focuses on money issues for middle- and low-income Americans, found federally-contracted jobs leave 1-in-5 of its workers in poverty.

“Much of the savings from outsourcing federal projects to private companies doesn’t come from greater efficiency, but rather lower wages and benefits,” said Kathryn Edwards, co-author of EPI’s “Outsourcing Poverty.”

No doubt the business-minded, business-lovin’, business-kissin’, business-fornicating, Republican majority in Congress will continue every effort at their disposal to outsource what federal government they can’t destroy. You think bureaucracy is bad now? Outsourcing will only make it worse.

 

Posted on

Not entirely stuck on Band-Aids but duct tape is a whole different dog.

Dang it, I can’t find anything today.  Okay there it is.

In addition to my inability to find a damn thing it as well has been another medically frustrating day.

My doctor (my physician’s assistant at the VA) told me that my latest MRI results were practically indistinguishable from the one taken 14 months ago. That is good, in a sense, except I now know only slightly more why my lower back enters seismic pain whenever I stand more than 10 minutes or walk 20 minutes. Reading a copy of my radiology report it appears I have disk degeneration from L4-S1, “mild” central canal stenosis at L-3-4 and disk “protrusions” at L-4-5 and S-1. I read a definition of a disk protrusion as being intermediate  between a bulging disk and one that is herniated.

There are other words in the report which I cannot make heads nor tails of when used in a sentence. Perhaps in those words lie the reason why the doctors say they can do nothing to fix my back. It isn’t that I want surgery but I would sure like something to make the act of walking and standing, two very important factors in my current wage earning as a part-time government data collector and loads of fun for other uses, less filled with agony. Since the doctors have said there was nothing they can do, surgically at least, I thought I’d see if the “pain experts” might have a magical cure. We can already rule out physical therapy. Tried that. If surgery isn’t an option, then, perhaps …. a Band-Aid or duct tape.

While waiting in my doctor/PA’s office this morning, I looked down at my right, big toe and remembered to ask the medical expert about it. For some months now, that big “little piggy” began to look kind of dark and funky. That kind of sets off alarm bells since I have diabetes. Imagine my surprise, and shock, when I looked down at the toe to show the doc and I noticed that the top of my toe looked as if someone had opened it up with a box cutter. There was a nice little “avulsion” there, not bleeding, but certainly reddish on either side of the tear and with each side looking as if they were about to play “Red Rover.”

“That’s not good,” my doc said, she being one for understatements.

Earle Dickson liked to keep a lot of the prototype Band-Aids around for his wife. Enough said?

She prescribed me some antibiotic cream and told me to keep it covered. She didn’t say what my split toe was all about and I am afraid I didn’t ask.

I bought some adhesive tape and “3-by-3s” at the H-E-B Pharmacy on Dowlen. This was after all the pharmacists and techs ignored me while I stood with back aching for some time. I finally went back and purchased the tape and bandage. I chose 3 X 3 bandages — 3″ x 3″ — because I figured I didn’t need a 4 x 4,  which seem to be (or at least used to be) the gold standard for gauze bandages. I was first introduced to the world of 4 x 4s in firefighting rookie school and later during my training and subsequent recertifications as an emergency medical technician. How many times did I hear the joke about the rookie EMT from Texas A & M who brought back an armload of timbers when his supervisor told him to “go get some 4 x 4s?” Too many, I am afraid

I can’t make a long story short without severe editing, so I will just note that when I came home and put the medicated goo on my big toe, the adhesive tape from H-E-B wouldn’t stick on the 3 X 3 for all the world. As somewhat like the wife of Earle Dickson, inventor of the Band-Aid, I always am cutting my fingers cooking plus doing all kinds of other weird stuff. Therefore, Band-Aids are a big item in my medicine cabinet. I had no “big uns” to completely cover my big toe, but I had some standard sized Band-Aid bandages.

The Band-Aid stayed on my toe for awhile, but now it’s waving in the wind like a pair of flesh-colored bikini undies in a 1970s college panty raid although the bandage is, needless to say, much less than sexy.

Until I am able to purchase some of those big, heavy duty, waterproof Band-Aids that I know will cover most of my toe even through a Southeast Texas “frog-strangler” (heavy rain), I think I will retrieve the duct tape from behind my truck seat and use it on the Band-Aid. By Goree, if duct tape doesn’t keep my bandage on, nothing on Earth will.

I could get testimonials for the “silver sticker,” but I don’t think I need it. Who doesn’t have a great duct tape story? Stuck on Band-Aids? (And who doesn’t know that Barry Manilow wrote that jingle before he was a “star?”}Yes, I’m stuck on some of them, but until I get the right BD for the job I’ll go with duct tape to seal the deal, thank  you! Don’t worry, my toe is hairless and will probably be skinless too.