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Stop it! Just stop it!

Yes, I know I have written about this before, perhaps more than once. But it really bugs the hell out of me! It has happened again today and, as is the case in many times, the subject of my consternation it is under tragic circumstances.

I speak of the long-time police and news media practice of giving the public a description of someone that could fit probably 40 percent of people on earth. I just use 40 percent as a figure thrown out there. I have no idea the number. This time the sketchy descriptions are for two “persons of interest” in a murder not too far from where I live in Beaumont, Texas.  By the way, “persons of interest?” Cop jargon expanded into three whole words. Here is what police say the “persons” looked like:

“They are both black males,” said the Beaumont Police Department press release. ” One is described as tall and thin with short dread-locks wearing white shorts.  The second is described as large and stocky with no other description.  They may have left the motel in a gold colored four-door vehicle.”

Cultural icon or robbery-homicide suspect?
Cultural icon or robbery-homicide suspect?

Police said a 27-year-old Monroe, La., woman was shot at a Knights Inn motel and later died at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital. The motel is off Interstate 10 near Walden Road and near the Petro truck stop center. The particular area is populated with a number of hotels and restaurants as well as the Tinseltown theater. It isn’t what I would call a high crime area. Sgt. Rob Flores, the Beaumont police spokesman, said robbery was an apparent motive which led to a disturbance in one of the rooms. A man in the room was also treated at St. Elizabeth for a gunshot to the neck and is in good condition, KFDM6 in Beaumont reported just a minute or two ago.

Channel 6 and at least two other local TV stations — 12News and Fox4 — ran with the skimpy description. Since the story was picked up on the Associated Press wire there is no telling how many papers, Websites and TV stations will run the story as well as the embarrassingly short description. That all depends on space, as Captain Kirk might say.

Let’s take a close look at the description;

  1. They are both black males.  Some 47 percent of Beaumont’s population is black. About 48 percent of the men in Beaumont are black. This is according to the U.S. Census, by the way.
  2. One is described as tall and thin with short dreadlocks wearing white shorts. I don’t have my hands on any statistics as to how many black men are tall and how many are thin. Likewise with those wearing short dreadlocks. It used to be the only people who wore dreadlocks were the Jamaican Rastafarians. Now people of all types, both black, white, men or women, sport them. As for white shorts? Get the hell out of here!
  3. The second is described as large and stocky with no other description. Poor guy. He has no other description. No wonder he (allegedly) turned to a life of crime.
  4. They may have left the motel in a gold colored four-door vehicle. Or they may have left in a blue pickup with two doors. Or perhaps they fled on horses.

Come on! I know this is no joking matter but, even though I may have engaged in incomplete descriptions I received from police in my cop reporting days, I still found it ridiculous. I mean, what are the chances that come tomorrow, the tall, thin guy will be sitting in the cafe reading the paper about this senseless homicide while still dressed in those white shorts?:

Beaumont police just released and KFDM6 reported, the name of the victim and where she was from. That is also pertinent information. The police and Channel 6 Website both pointed out that the slain woman’s autopsy will be performed tomorrow at 1 p.m. That is helpful information for the media, not that reporters and photographers will view the postmortem examination, but to give them a sense of time as to when preliminary results might become available. I give the police an “A” for that. But is it really news for media to report and for most people to consume?

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That tragic, deadly, ol’ Love Boat

Have you ever wondered how many boxes of toothpicks can be made from a single tree?

Most toothpicks in the U.S. are made from birch, according to Ask.com, the answer to everything, the trut,’ the whole trut’ and nothing but the trut.’

Well, according to one site whose pedigree I couldn’t tell you:

In one cord of wood (logs 8′ in length, stacked 4′ high, and 4′ wide) can be turned into 7.5 million toothpicks.

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw as a kid. The board of directors are sitting around in a board room (where else). A chart is being pointed to at a company called Acme Toothpick by some suit. The suit says: “Unfortunately, we expect a sharp decline in profits this year since the company bought a new tree.”
And we all laughed.
So what brings this up? Why it is the Love Boat. Yes, you remember so many years ago … “The Love Boat promises something new for everyone …. ” Like the prospect that this episode will be followed by “Fantasy Island.” “De plane, de plane … “
The MS Pacific is the ship once known as the Pacific Princess. That was when she embarked from across the way from the Long Beach shipyard in which my destroyer was dry-docked during that magic summer of ’77. Magic? Magic Tragic. It’s just “artistic license.” After all, someone probably made tons of money from that terrible “Love Boat” theme. Get over it. The Pacific limped into a Turkish shipyard last week, listing much like half of my crew on a one-night liberty in Fiji. A ship recycling company bought the ship — the Princess, not my destroyer — for about $3.3 million.
One might think this about the worst ending ever for a 70s icon of love. But, oh no, it gets even worse.
No doubt the “Love Boat” sucked as a TV show. Who knew it was actually lethal?
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Dealiest Catch not just in Bering Sea

Millions of viewers watch the adventure-soap “Deadliest Catch” each week pitting Alaskan crab fishermen against the cruel Bering Sea.

The drama of grown men gets as old as quick, maybe quicker, than that of women young and old. But I do like the dramatic quality of the photography. Those of you who have sailed in harrowing gale or tropical storm waters should appreciate the pounding and rodeo-ride the crabbers must get from those serious waves.

Danger is no stranger to those who trap crabs. For many years it was the most dangerous job in the country. Stricter regulations have made the fishing safer, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, the job is not a cakewalk. And that is true whether you fish the crazy waters of the Bering Sea or the mostly calm back bays of the Gulf Coast.

A case in point is the search taking place about 20 miles southeast of where I sit.

The Coast Guard and local authorities from Port Arthur, Texas, and Jefferson County began searching the Sabine Lake area Sunday afternoon for a 56-year-old Bridge City man. A Coast Guard news release said the “pleasure craft” in which Tran was boating collided with the tug and barge Father Seelos. Authorities found the submerged boat. Although the Coasties dubbed the smaller vessel as a pleasure craft, local media have reported that the boat was used for crabbing. Most crabbers — if not most in seafood — in Tran’s area are Vietnamese who first settled in Port Arthur after being plucked from flotillas trying to escape after the 1975 fall of Saigon.

 

Coast Guard and local authorities found this boat belonging to John Tran, who is missing in Sabine Lake. Photo by Petty Officer Manda Emery
Coast Guard and local authorities found this boat belonging to John Tran, who is missing in Sabine Lake. Photo by Petty Officer Manda Emery

One time about 15 years ago I traveled in the early but humid Southeast Texas morning to catch a crab boat with a man whose name, if I am not mistaken, was Tran. I don’t know if this was the same man because he used his given name. My photographer buddy Bullet Bob and I sailed from Bridge City through the bayous and into Sabine Lake to do a feature on this hard-working man whose waters were much calmer than those found in the Bering. But the sea wasn’t our Mr. Tran’s most pressing concern.

Sabine Lake is a 90,000-acre estuary in which the Sabine and Neches Rivers empty. It likewise forms the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. Like other seafood fished from Sabine Lake, anglers, shrimpers, crabbers and all the rest search for finite resources. Pressure is exerted on crabs and fish by fellow marine harvesters — commercial and sport — plus the waterways serve busy ports hauling petrochemicals as well as the Intracoastal Canal and its Southern State barge traffic. The 75-foot x 33-foot Father Seeros was en route to Baton Rouge, according to maritimetraffic.com.

A culture clash was also an inevitable outcome when Vietnamese fishermen met Southeast Texas rednecks. Not all of us are. But I can recall hearing some ya-hoo telling our crabber and his home folks to whom he was speaking in his native language on the CB to “get the shit out of your mouth.” Not very nice indeed.

Our crabber’s take that day was just a few but it was worth the trip that morning, he said. If the sea doesn’t get you something else is always there it seems. Mr. Tran has not been seen in more than 24 hours but authorities are still looking.

“We’re utilizing all efforts possible to locate the missing person,” said Senior Chief Petty Officer Joshua Tidey, a Coast Guard spokesman for the Houston-Galveston area.

 

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Houston firefighters killed in five-alarm restaurant-hotel blaze

I like to give a good start to the upcoming weekend but sometimes things don’t always lend themselves to the pleasant.

A black streamer crosses the insignia of Houston Local 341, the Houston Professional Firefighters Assn., mourning the loss of four firefighters this afternoon.
A black streamer crosses the insignia of Houston Local 341, the Houston Professional Firefighters Assn., mourning the loss of four firefighters this afternoon.

At least four Houston firefighter were killed this afternoon fighting a five-alarm blaze that started in an Indian restaurant in the city’s Southwest section. A press release from the offices of Houston Mayor Anise Parker and Fire Chief Terry Garrison confirmed the fatalities. A press conference is planned sometime later today at Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center as soon as all families of those dead firefighters have been notified.

CNN also reported that five other people were injured in the fire at which some 160 people were called to scene.

The deaths today make 68 the number of Houston firefighters who died in the line of duty since the department became paid in 1895. These are the first line of duty deaths since May 2009. That fatality took place after a Houston fire cadet died following a four-mile run in which the cadet finished before anyone else.

Cohnway Johnson, 26, died in Memorial Herman five days after collapsing in a four-mile run during firefighter training. Johnson previously served as a firefighter in Oak Hill, Texas.

News reports say the fire department received a report of a blaze just after noon today at the Bhojan Restaurant. It is located at 6855 Southwest Freeway, near the intersection of Hornwood and the Southwest Freeway a.k.a. South U.S. Hwy. 59 South. The fire spread to the nearby Southwest Inn motel. A disco and sports bar also burned, according to the Houston Chronicle.

My Dad served for a short while as a volunteer firefighter in his younger days. He was happy to see his youngest son become a professional firefighter even though it was only for a mere five years. Fighting fires “gets in your blood,” said my Dad. Indeed it did, at least for me. I left my department on the best of terms, even helping out a year after leaving by assisting an out-of-town pumper crew that stood-by at my old station when a massive fire tapped all my former department’s resources. The fire at an International Paper plywood plant was destroyed. I later found ashes — some as large as 6-by-12 inches — from the fire in a cow pasture near my home some 10 miles away.

News such as this hits me, perhaps, with a bit more impact than the average citizen. I can’t say that for certain, just a feeling. All of this combined with Houston being only a mere 80 miles across I-10 from where I live.

Here’s hoping those others who were injured make a swift recovery. Likewise, I would like to give those surviving families of the fallen and their firefighter brothers and sisters who also are left to grieve my condolences.

 

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Why do we ask why after large news events? Why do you ask?

Why is that Americans must have an explanation for when circumstances go blowing out of our control? Perhaps we have a Why Disorder. But if so, why is that?

Take the recent mega-news stories lately: The Boston Marathon bombing; the West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion; the retrieval of the three, long-held kidnapped girls-turned-women in Cleveland; the Oklahoma City-area tornadoes. Each one of these scarcely left time for a breath until journalists were seeking the why behind the stories.

* Why didn’t Boston have better planning for the possibility of terrorist attacks, especially during the marathon? What’s with the connection between the dead Boston suspect and a 2011 murder in which the victim, supposedly the marathon bomber’s best friend was allegedly found murdered in Florida and sprinkled with marijuana? THIS STUFF IS FREAKING ME OUT!!!

* Why weren’t residents who lived in the downtown portion of the community of West better informed as to what kind of dangers lurked in their communities?

* Why weren’t the three kidnapped girls found earlier after the suspect had contacts with the police while the girls were being held? Why was the 9-1-1 operator “so mean” to kidnap victim Amanda Berry as she summoned help from police?

* Why aren’t people in Oklahoma City, especially kids in school, better protected with shelters from the ferocious storms that frequent “Tornado Alley,” the area including OKC?

NOAA photo
NOAA photo

These are all fair questions and I don’t fault the journalists with asking such questions, especially when victims or those living in the communities do the asking. Perhaps the timing rubs me the wrong way. The more I stray from my journalist roots, the more I question some of the very practices I once engaged in as a reporter. Or at the very least, some aspects of those practices.

“Get off my lawn,” sez me, the Old Fart.

If you’ve ever tried explaining something complex to members of the general public — tides, animal reproduction, the Consumer Price Index — you might understand that getting to the why isn’t always easy. Yet, often the whys to these type of questions are easier to fathom than “the why to the why.”

When I was growing up, accidents used to happen. Mr. Jones was killed in an automobile accident. Mrs. Jones died of natural causes. That the car Mr. Jones was driving had a blow-out on the right-rear wheel which caused the driver to veer off the road and flipped the car three times after the driver over-corrected was not that important. The fact that he was survived by Mrs. Jones who died from a heart attack the next day and that the funeral for the couple will be tomorrow at 6 p.m. under the direction of Smith’s Morgue was what the locals cared most about.

Since then, we’ve had the 24-hour news cycle, lawsuits, the Internet, Honey Boo Boo and who knows what all.

So if you have questions, here are some news articles that might answer some of the inquiries, that is, from all of you who have come to expect immediate answers. If you are looking for answers from me, look somewhere else might I suggest.

Is anywhere safe in a storm — Slate

Tornado Aftermath — The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal

Gimme Shelter — Mother Nature Network