Author: Dick

It was magnificent watching the space shuttle launch this morning although I do admit to feeling a bit uneasy beforehand. I don’t know when was the last launch that I watched. I don’t think I was even aware that the Columbia was up when I was awakened that Saturday morning in February 2003 by my then editor who told me the shuttle exploded over North Central and East Texas.

The Columbia tragedy touched a lot of lives of people I know because of where the debris came to rest. I also saw portions of debris that day while working on a story about the crash.

So I guess that is why I am glad the shuttle launch seemingly went off without a hitch this morning. Seeing that spaceship take off also rekindled a lot of childhood memories when I watched Mercury and Apollo flights launched on television as a kid. I never will forget the first moon landing. It was just an awesome moment in the history of the world.

The space program has its critics, especially those saying that the exorbitant sums of money could do other good. But space exploration has brought about tons of scientific and commercial benefits to make our lives better and easier. And even if wasn’t providing all such benefits the space program helps lift the human spirit. It lets people think about what is possible. It makes little kids dream. I think it’s a great bargain.

Problems with the news media? Why not. Flogging the media seems to be the biggest pastime to hit the Internet since Paris Hilton’s sex video. Goodness knows the media has its troubles. But I read so much punditry these days that takes shots here and there at the so-called “mainstream news media” that just makes me want to reach out and slap some people.

I read people’s rants on blogs against the “liberal” media. But most often these people are just ranting and can offer no proof for their contentions. Gee, do you think they got their proof from the likes of Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly or one of those, to use O’Reilly’s invective, “pinheads?” If you’re going to rail against something. I want to know why you are railing. You can call a duck a pig, but at least let me know why in the hell you are doing something so foolish.

Something else that is kind of baffling with all the media bashing is the touting of an “alternative media.” Certainly variations of news delivery exists beyond the so-called “mainstream news media.” Take Fox News, for example. Please! Fox is popular for many reasons. But one important reason is that it truly does have an obvious conservative bias in its news shows. And I don’t have a problem with that. There are magazines for conservatives, some for liberals and some in between. But don’t give me that “fair and balanced” crap. Because for the most part, Fox News is neither fair nor balanced.

Other alternative news sources exist as well. But many such sources are not really “news gatherers” as much as they are news commentary. Sure there are bloggers out there who actually go out and gather news. But I would guess the vast majority of those in the blogosphere get news that had at least some origin in the MSM. So certainly a lot of alternative voices exist out there but a lot of what they are saying includes slices of pie from the newspaper and TV.

What is really wrong with the media is more complex. Not to worry though because hand-wringing is the news industry’s primary activity.

Most of the problems I have with the news media are institutional. The concentration of media outlets into fewer and highly corporate hands is a real concern. The strains on the industry also takes it tolls on the quality of the product. You start bleeding money and another reporter bites the dust. Pretty soon you have one reporter covering not as ably the five or six beats that five or six others once had. I’ve seen it happen.

Other issues are out there as well. Quality control seems to be more of a problem nowadays because of both less seasoned editors and reporters. Then you have people who make crap up like Jayson Blair. That’s not good for the business. But with the exception of maybe a couple of handfuls of people I knew while working for newspapers, by and large the majority of media folks I have known are dedicated individuals who are passionate about doing a good job.

Oh no. Did I just defend the media? What in heaven’s name is wrong with me?

Spanky, Alfalfa, Buckwheat and Darla are to blame

Do you know how sometimes you look for something on the Web and you end up down a much different path an hour or two later? That’s me this afternoon. I was looking at dog breeds on Yahoo Pets because I was trying to identify the breed of a dog that accosted me while I was out for a walk this morning. I ended up reading about the old “Our Gang” a.k.a. “The Little Rascals” series on Wikipedia.

This little dog came running out the front door of a house as I was walking by this morning. A man in his pajamas was calling after the dog. I think he called the dog “Ricky.” That’s kind of a strange dog name isn’t it? The dog headed right for me and it just appeared to be very friendly so I reached down and petted it for a couple of seconds before walking on. I don’t know exactly what breed it was. It looked kind of like a Pomeranian but then it also could be a Lhasa Apso. I haven’t a clue.

But reading about dogs I thought of Nipper, the RCA dog. I had always heard it was an American Pit Bull Terrier but the article I read said that wasn’t likely because it was born in England. According to the Wikipedia article I read, Nipper was a mixed breed of bull terrier and fox terrier.

Then I got interested in another pit bull, none other than Petey of the Little Rascals. So I read about Petey and then started reading about the various actors and what happened to them. I don’t think I ever knew that Alfalfa was shot and killed in 1959. The article I read said the killing was considered justifiable homicide because Alfalfa pulled a knife on the person who killed him.

All of that just trying to find out what kind of dog Ricky might be. Ricky? I just don’t know about that name.

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear some type of siren. It is something that is a fact of city life and especially understandable living two blocks from one of the area’s trauma centers.

But it has been some time since I have been as up close and personal to a siren, or sirens I should say, as when I went for a walk this morning. I was walking down Ashley Avenue when an EMS supervisor came ripping down the street behind me and zipped on past me. He went a couple of blocks and turned off his siren. But as the vehicle and its siren was going by I thought my ears would bleed.

When I walked down a street and started back in the opposite direction on Long Avenue a couple of minutes later history repeated itself. Only this time, the EMS supervisor was going in the opposite direction (the same direction as I was walking) and he was followed by a fire department supervisor. Both had their sirens blazing.

Now, I certainly am not complaining. I used to be a firefighter and EMT, and I have used probably more than my share of siren warnings. It is one of the things you have in your tool kit to maybe keep oncoming traffic from running you over and leaving you for roadkill.

But a lot of debate exists over just how effective sirens and emergency lights are. I had a Texas state trooper who taught emergency driving in my EMT class who said he never used warning lights nor sirens when responding to an emergency. His rationale was no one paid attention to them anyway.

I remember emergency driving experiences in which I used a siren, an air horn and warning lights on my fire truck. And still I would have people in front of me who were totally clueless that I was behind them. Sometimes I would take the big spotlight mounted just forward of the door and flash it quickly in their rearview mirror. That usually got their attention.

Once you get away from riding in vehicles using sirens though they eventually become part of the background. That is until today. I forgot just how loud those things are.

I also don’t know if I suffered any hearing loss from my days in emergency vehicles. Sirens put out upwards of 120 decibels and anything over 80-85 decibels for sustained periods can cause hearing loss, from what I have read. Add to that being on a warship that would shoot its cannons, along with all the loud music I have listened to over the years and I guess it’s amazing I can hear at all.

But I wouldn’t trade an absence of all that noise for the experiences I got with it. Besides, some of that music just doesn’t sound very good unless it is LOUD!!!

Bigfoot uncovered?

This afternoon I am off to the backwoods and river bottoms of the very eastern fringe of Texas to find Bigfoot. Of course, if I am going to see Sasquatch then he/she/it is going to have to appear somewhere that is convenient for me. That is because I surely am not going to go trouncing through the Sabine River swamps on a humid late July afternoon. I may be a fool, but I am not an idiot.

Apparently a great many people think Bigfoot resides in certain areas such as the East Texas pineywoods. An organization calling itself the Texas Bigfoot Research Center provides a database listing Bigfoot sightings in various Texas counties. Two sightings are listed in Newton County, where I was raised, and although I profess to having seen many strange things there I don’t think I ever saw Sasquatch. Nonetheless, here is a description of one such sighting near the Bon Wier community in 1999 from the database:

“My dad was bowfishing when he saw something on the bank. It was about the size of a man with raggy fur and entangled with twigs and leaves, it also had bright yellow eyes. My dad smacked the water with the paddle. It immediately turned and screamed.”

A sissy Sasquatch perhaps. Now I have known people in those parts who kind of fit that description. But I never knew any of them to tuck tail and run, much less scream.

A follow-up investigation of another Bigfoot report in 2004 near the Sabine River uncovered an apparent hot zone for Sasquatch:

“‘People around here say they see ’em [bigfoots] all the time.’ (Her) family lives within two miles of the Sabine River, an area that generates many bigfoot sighting reports. The mother said she wasn’t sure what she and her kids saw, but she was ‘definitely freaked out’ by it,” according to the report of Bigfoot investigator Daryl G. Colyer, a former Air Force intelligence “Airborne Russian Linguist.”

Hmm. Okay. Maybe you find Russian-speaking Sasquatches aerially. I wonder if Bigfoot drinks vodka?

Well, I expect to find out those answers this afternoon when I go into deepest, darkest East Texas. I’ve got a camera so if I happen to see Bigfoot, I’ll snap a quick pic of it and share it with you when I get back.