Category: Orphans

The calm from the Emirates airline pilot and controllers at New York’s JFK certainly must belie what is going through their heads as they are told to return to the gate. The reason was that the suspect in the unsuccessful Times Square bombing was on board and federal authorities were about to arrest him.

Below is the conversation as it took place prior to the arrest of Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani native who had only been granted U.S. citizenship during the past year. The tape is via LiveATC.net, on which live air traffic control communications can be heard from certain world airports.

Of course, the Rightists are already mealy-mouthing the arrest and the fact Shahzad was read his Miranda rights. It’s something I suspected would begin but still, can’t they find something meaningful to debate?

Have you ever heard that old expression: “Don’t get your bowels in an uproar?” No? Well you just heard it.

If you don’t know already, the phrase means don’t get all upset. Except in my case. That is because mine are in an uproar.

I know it’s not polite conversation to talk about matters such as the “DIE-ree-uh” word. But when you got to go …

This afternoon I was out doing some field work and, oh my, I’m glad my place isn’t too far. I passed a police car parked as if it might be looking for speeders. I might have been going over the limit a bit. I just didn’t want him to stop me because he’d never believe me. Well, he might, but I don’t want to think about it.

I took two sick hours and here I am at home. I don’t know what it is exactly causing my problem. The affliction visiting this afternoon is pretty rare for me. I think that might be because I have to take a synthetic opioid  pretty often for pain.

But, I will get better. I might have to curl up into a ball and spend some time on the porcelain throne first. But get better I will.

“Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet,” Master Po asked Shaolin monk Caine  in the early 70s’ “Kung Fu?”

Who knows. But another man named Poe (silent “e”) apparently hears grasshoppers everywhere.

U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and to my sadness is  my congressional representatives, called illegal immigrants “grasshoppers” during a speech on the House floor. Illegal immigrants are a big thing with Master Poe. For one thing, it gets him on the Fox Republican Propaganda Network. It  used to mean appearances on CNN when big anti-illegal alien Lou Dobbs still had a TV show. He has often been shown on right-wing news shows at border stations such as in El Paso, about 800 miles from his congressional district.

Poe, congressman not the blind master played by Keye Luke, is a former state district judge who loved getting his name in the paper or his mug on TV for handing out outlandish sentences in criminal cases. Never get in between Ted Poe and a reporter or news camers. Poe is in love with the idea of himself on television or in the news. That is why I won’t spend much of my time on him.

Congressman (Judge) Poe thinks the man that catches illegal aliens here, near the Sabine-Neches rivers in the local ports should be in charge of Homeland Security. They, those federal officers in my area who keep people from getting themselves killed in holds of cargo ships, do a good job. They do what they are supposed to do. I’m sure they wouldn’t want a job continually kissing backsides of pompous politicians like Ted Poe.

Snatch the pebble Congressman Poe and it will be time to leave. On second thought. Why not leave now? Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

What happens when a tragedy transforms into a disaster? One may find that answer under the heading of “Deepwater Horizon.”

When the multi-million-dollar offshore oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico and sank two days later the incident was already a tragedy if not a disaster-in-the-making. However, no one could be positive about either possibility at the initial stages.

Now nearly two weeks later, the 11 workers who were missing and were a subject of a search over hundreds of miles of Gulf waters are feared dead. That was and is the tragedy and what makes this such a personal story for anyone who wants to personalize it — whether they want to or not.

The sinking of the rig and the inability to stop the flow of oil went from a terrible headache for BP and other principals and evolved into a disaster as the oil continues to ride the waves toward the delicate Louisiana wetlands and beyond. Perhaps booms or  whatever can be laid down on the strait at the Rigolets and at Chef Mentuer Pass to keep the crude out of Lake Pontchartrain. But bad weather including coastal flooding will likely have the oil threatening Mississippi Sound and the beaches of Alabama and even Florida.

It isn’t just the birds, many which may die from oily feathers, or the two-toed Biloxi turkle dove or any real or imagined endangered species that face harm while in the path of this crude mess that makes this a disaster of many dimensions. Think about the fishing — commercial and recreational — and the oyster beds and shrimp that might destroy an economy that was just trying to return after a series of hurricanes. What happens when disaster follows disaster follows disaster?

It isn’t just the concerns of the “environmental wackos,” as I heard Rush Limburgerbreath call them yesterday. This runaway oil is an economic train wreck hitting a tornado after being buried in an avalanche following an earthquake. Just that one rig. Just imagine the impact on the U.S. petroleum industry alone. Then there is the potential economic loss from the fishing industry and tourism. I thought about visiting Gulfport and Biloxi in a couple of weeks but decided instead to visit my friend who lives in El Paso, across the Rio Grande from the world’s murder capital, Juarez. Oh well, I guess I’m an adventure tourista. But my decision was made before the potential oil spill disaster that could strike a Katrina-rebounding Mississippi Gulf Coast.

But yes, this thing, this oil spill in the Gulf, has turned into a bigger “thing.” It is an environmental disaster that become a major freaking ecological disaster. So let the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and the ghost of John Wayne playing a Red Adair-like character in the 1968 adventure flick “Hellfighters” go in and get this “thing” under control. An economy depends on it.  So do the birds. So does the Earth. And if indeed the 11 missing are forever entombed into the deep, let them live where the seas once again show its beauty and the sailor’s wish of fair winds and following seas. It’s the least that can be done for those men.

All’s well that ends well, especially when one doesn’t end up in the slammer for contempt of court.

Who knows whether it was the ignorance of youth or the arrogance of bratdom that prompted 19-year-old Houston college student Kelsey Gloston to avoid federal jury duty. Avoid seems a bit too polite. It seems like Gloston was telling U.S. District Judge David Hittner and his staff where he could put his gavel and his robe.

Gloston could have probably shirked jury duty at one appearance she made at court before she told the clerks she had a flat and then later hung up on them. But no, that is not what she ended up doing, according to the linked story above.

Some may say Hittner was on a power trip. Maybe. But there are places where judges are hard pressed to fill up a jury box. If everyone did like Gloston …

I was living one of my most impoverished periods when I first got called up for a jury. I didn’t have money to put gas in my truck and I lived about 12 miles from the courthouse, out in the boonies. So here I was wearing this suit, hitching a ride to town. Didn’t have any trouble getting a ride whatsoever. I filled up on the donuts and enjoyed the coffee the jurors had those two mornings. They bought us lunch and dinner one day. Plus, we got paid for it!

But I would never try to avoid jury duty, I am kind of a civics geek, and a proud citizen of this country like that. Your ride here in this country isn’t totally free. The “patriots” say “freedom isn’t free.” Neither is running a society. But you get this country and donuts too? Shoot man, that’s not a bad deal at all!