Author: Dick

At some point during this spring I decided to read at least one biography of each U.S. president. The reason for this diversion is that I became interested in presidential biographies reading about President U.S. Grant while sleeping on the beach. Yeah, I know, he doesn’t sound like a “hot” read while hanging at the beach but to each his or her own. I actually got hooked on bios after reading about the life of Mark Twain but that’s another story.

When I say biography, I mean book, not some snapshot such as:

Name: G. Washington
Term of Office: 1789-1797
Nicknames: Father of Wooden Dentures, One Buck
Know for: Lying his ass off

In addition to the Grant bio, I have read bios of Warren G. Harding and James A. Garfield. I am now reading a book about Grover Cleveland. It’s called “Grover Cleveland: And the Walrus was Big Steve.” No, that’s not really the name of it. But Grover’s first name was Stephen and he was called “Big Steve” as a boy. That was probably because he was a big boy.

After investigating the lives of Harding and Cleveland, in particular, I really see from where the old saw about anyone growing up to be president came. I am not being serious here because I think perhaps there is something very unique in one’s makeup for that person to become president of these United States of America. I am not saying every man, so far the only presidents have been men, who held the office was a great man. Cleveland seems like some of the ne’er-do-wells I have known all of my adult life. These are basically smart people who like to drink beer and talk about eclectic topics, then they usually puke on someone’s shoes.

Also during my adult life, I have read a number of books written about certain presidents. Kennedy, or rather Kennedy’s death, has been a particular fascination. I’ve probably read four or five books on Lyndon B. Johnson including all of the Robert Caro books. I think LBJ was pretty much a scoundrel but being a real Texan and not an Ivy League one like some presidents I can think of — no names but one’s initial’s rhymes with “Bub Ma” — Johnson was our scoundrel.

In recent years presidents have had tons of books written about them. If biographies of Bill Clinton were stacked end-to-end they would reach clear to St. Louis — from somewhere.

At the very least after reading these bios, I don’t feel so bad for — so far — not realizing my potential. Just who knows what that potential is may be anyone’s guess. Perhaps it is using hyphens — .

Williams: Let them
eat aspirin.

Southeast Texas media members have found something to lull them out of the summer doldrums.

Summer can be a slow news time because a definite void is left in the news hole due to schools on hiatus. But the big “pill mill” saga is keeping our media friends hopping like a kangaroo on meth.

Earlier this year, concerned citizens and law enforcement in this corner of Texas had friendly pols such as state Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, and Rep. Mike “Tuffy” Hamilton, R-Mauriceville, pushing legislation that would make it harder for cash-only pain management clinics to write scrips for popular prescription analgesics such as Xanax, Lorcet and Soma.

Yesterday, local and state law officers and DEA agents raided a number of pain clinics around the area, seizing records, reportedly to investigate doctors recklessly and overprescribing those prescriptions which end up used for recreational purposes. Local authorities said they have been investigating these clinics for a long time. But all of a sudden they make a big show of raiding and seizing files. I wonder why?

Could it be because of the media hubbub, which included a well-advertised special report on the pill-mill issue by local TV station KFDM-Channel 6 in Beaumont, Texas. Culminating investigations by cops when the media was about writing about the authorities’ targets have been known to happen. An instance which instantly comes to mind is the Branch Davidian raid by the ATF during the time a series about David Koresh and the Davidians was published by the Waco, Texas, newspaper, a paper of which I once had knowledge.

The Channel 6 special, which I believe will be air again this weekend (One can watch the special “Prescription for Abuse” (sigh) on its Web site.), wasn’t bad. It centered around a local woman whose son died of an overdose of prescription pills to which the young man had been addicted.

After seeing the report, I do see that the situation seems kind of dangerous. But I still have heard little about how tighter restriction on lower tier pain medication might ultimately affect patients who suffer from chronic pain. Although I am afflicted by chronic pain, the restrictions would likely not affect me since I have to go to a Department of Veterans Affairs doctor every month for methadone to control pain.

One disconcerning thought from the Channel 6 special came about when the grieving mother of the OD victim said that a tighter leash should be kept on patients who go “doctor-shopping.” For law enforcement officials to effectively do that would most likely involve cops searching an individual’s medical records willy-nilly. For me, that just wouldn’t fly.

Nonetheless, I was happy to see today that the “Beaumont Enterprise” published a story about legitimate pain clinics along with its story on the latest chapter in the Southeast Texas pill mill saga.

Sometimes the entire story of pill mills gone wild in Southeast Texas seems a little too much hype and not enough fiber. But I certainly can’t fault the media, especially after hearing a discussion this morning on Houston talk radio station KTRH .

Callers to this show were up in the air over media coverage on the four teens who met their end early today when the stolen vehicle in which they were riding struck a parked train. Pardon the phrasing of their demise, but I am on a public library computer which censors certain words being transmitted such as the more generic term for an unexpected instance in which one ceases to live.

Some who called this show said the media slanted their story to make it more about the train while others complained that it wasn’t news for teens to be joyriding.

Having worked in the news profession, I still shake my head over how much the general public think they know about news. As I like to point out, one would hardly respect the opinion of a lay person professing to know about brain surgery if they knew the person giving that opinion was only an eighth-grade graduate (I’m not slamming eighth-graders now). Likewise, we rarely don’t tell mechanics or plumbers their business when they are working for us (some people do, I know, I know, already!). The point is there are many people out there who think they know news when in fact they wouldn’t know legitimate news if it fell out of the sky and turned them into a pile of fine dust.

However, people do know what they like. And that is what media managers need to keep in the back of their minds. Is Paris Hilton news? No, but stories over her jailing is what the reading and viewing public wants. And that is quite unfortunate.

At least the president’s watch wasn’t stolen. It was quite the news event that Gee Dubya was given a hero’s greeting in Albania. The people there seem to love him. Perhaps he should move there. Soon.

No matter how trite — be it the song or the saying — breaking up is hard to do.

Some breakups are harder than others. I feel fortunate in that the endings of most of my relationships weren’t too awful. Methinks Lady Luck, who has been AWOL from my neighborhood lately, has blessed me in that I never had an ex-girlfriend such as the ex-girlfriend I encountered on Saturday night.

She wasn’t MY ex-girlfriend, thank heavens. Because had she have been, she might have actually killed me instead of merely assaulting me with her car.

The sound of a drunk chick’s horn disturbed my otherwise leisurely Saturday evening as I was grilling some chicken outside and staying cool under Mr. AC inside. I guess you could say I was grilling and chilling. I don’t know. This woman then beat on my neighbor’s door and after the neighbor and his present girlfriend told drunk chick — who turned out to be the neighbor’s ex — to take a hike, ol’ drunken chick ex-girlfriend got into her car and began blowing her horn once again.

Now people blowing their horns outside of an apartment or motel are among the people whom I most feel should be put on some island far, far away. I didn’t have use of my cell phone this weekend but I, nonetheless, went outside and pretended to dial my phone as if I was calling the police. Too bad my phone was out of service.

All of a sudden, drunk chick swings her car toward me in the parking lot and accelerates towards Mr. EFD like a bat out of Scratchville before braking, backing up and tearing out of the area. I called the police and an officer showed up, followed by a nice-looking blonde as his backup. I explained the event and the cop indicated he knew the drunk chick. I figured he would try to locate her and perhaps let her spend a night playing Paris Hilton.

Later that evening, as the adrenalin had worn off, I realized I must have twisted my back jumping back to avoid getting hit and thus, I spent the rest of the night in a bit of agony.

This morning I decided to follow up with the police. I found out the cop did nothing but leave after he heard my tale o’ woe. He didn’t even file a report. I wanted to file assault charges against drunk chick and still plan to, but now, I will have to do the investigating and spoon-feed it to the cops. It’s like another old saying: “If you want something done right …

I want to bring drunk chick to justice. If not, I might sue her drunken ass. I could have been hurt worse if she had forgotten where the brake was located. It was not a cool thing and it would have been less cool if she had killed or paralyzed me. So, hopefully karma will slap that bitch silly.

When blogging from the public library, one never knows what one will get (or not). What I am not getting on my Blogger template are the little buttons which help me perform certain tasks such as making text BOLD or ITALIC, spell check or upload a photo. So I can’t put up some picture that is cool, uncool, totally lame, whatever.

Therefore, I’ll just make a couple of comments about the big news of the day.

Big News Uno: Paris Hilton. Sorry I can’t link anything either because, once again, no buttons.

Everybody and their dog is outraged that Paris was released from jail after spending only a couple of days. By the way, I can’t link it, but if you want to see her booking information, go to www.lasd.org and click on “Inmate Information” and then type in last name first, etc.

I suppose people are upset that someone with the vast sums of money and fame that Paris has can get out of jail at the drop of a hat (or a million bucks.) Well, it’s not like she is the only person who can get sprung from jail early or not even have to go in the first place. Many people escape the slammer because they know someone or they know someone who knows someone. It’s happened to me before. I’m not ashamed to admit it.

“But that’s just not fair!” you whine.

It isn’t fair but life isn’t fair. Let’s see how you act when they come drag your ass to jail.

Numero Two-o: Immigration reform. Or lack thereof.

What I can’t understand are the people who are so much anti- “amnesty.” These are your people like CNN’s Lou Dobbs or U.S. Rep. and GOP presidential candidate Tom Tancredo of Colorado. What I’ve not heard is what they propose to do with some 12 million or more (or less)illegal aliens.

How long would it take to round up 12 million people, send them through legal proceedings and detain them until they are driven or flown back to their original country? How much would that cost? A lot of refritos I would bet. And what if, say 5 or 10 million didn’t want to come along peaceably? Then what? Our military happens to be very busy at the moment. What is the option then beside accomodating them somehow within our country? Let the patriots shoot them down like dogs? That would really go over well, both at home and abroad.

Okay. I’ve said my piece. It’s onward and upward.