Category: Orphans

There is so much wrong with the fact that our (Texas) Gov. Rick Perry shot a coyote while out on a jog in a supposed undeveloped part of Austin.

It’s not that he just shot a coyote. Just as Tela Mange said, people shoot coyotes and snakes all the time. Tela is the main spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety. The DPS, as they are called, includes the highway patrol, Texas Rangers (the police not the baseball team) and the governor’ security detail. I’ve called Tela a number of times when I worked as a reporter, just like many reporters in the state have. She is Aces for a cop flak. That is high praise, for those uninitiated.

Tela gave that response to reporters over whether a report had been filed that Perry discharged his gun. Nope. I’m sure he wasn’t required to. If his security squad had all unloaded on the little critter, I’m sure they would still be filling out paperwork through next year.

Therein lies what bothers me more than a little. Why did Rick Perry decide to play “Dirty Harry” and pull-out his .380 Ruger loaded with hollow-points and guided by laser sights? He supposedly was worried about his little dog. Isn’t it always about their “little dogs” with politicians? Look down through the years: FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Gee Dubya dropping Barney on the Texas State Technical College airport Tarmac.

If Goodhair was really worried about the coyote attacking the dog, after he shot it, for whatever reason, did anyone have the presence of mind to step back and look at the situation? Coyotes don’t go around attacking dogs that are in an entourage with  a bunch of folks running and kicking up dust, that is unless they are nuts or rabid or something. If anyone was really worried about the coyote did they ever think about taking the dead animal in to have it tested for rabies? No. That’s because Perry was likely in the frame of mind of that cartoon buzzards featured on T-shirts. The shirts say: “Patience My Ass. I Want to Kill Something.”

It does no good, here, to get into a moral tussle over whether varmints should be shot. Or whether deer should be shot. Or whether snakes should be shot. Or whether despicable war criminal-type murderers should be shot. Or whether you should eat beef or fish or eat an omelette while watching elephants perform with a cross-dressing trainer in a circus. These issues are all perpetual-motion machines. Right. Right. You’re bloody well right. Or you are wrong.

I never shot a coyote. I shot quite a few armadillos and a few squirrels when I was a kid. I don’t hunt and don’t kill animals anymore. It’s nothing particularly moral as it is aesthetics. If I was hungry, I might kill something. I’ve been hungry enough to do that. I once sat on the roof of my house with a .410 waiting for a squirrel or a bird big enough and not buzzardly enough to eat. Lucky the animals knew I was armed that day and stayed away. It’s just as well. It all worked out for me and for them.

In line with the fact that Perry’s story is rather flimsy is that I wonder where exactly did the coyote-killing take place? Was it in the Austin city limits? And I am not talking about the long-running PBS musical show on TV that features pickers and grinners playing before a false Austin background. Most cities have ordinances against “discharging firearms” within the city limits. If Perry and his security team were in an unincorporated area then the point is moot.

Finally, I don’t know much about using laser sights on handguns. I don’t think we’re talking here about a huge rifle-type scope mounted on top of Perry’s semi-auto. If Perry wanted to increase his ability to kill something, specifically someone, I am sure, from what little I have read in gun magazines and Web sites that laser sights might help. But there is just something a bit  unseemly about the governor of Texas — with its cowboy and frontier background — having to resort to laser-guided weapons to kill a little wild canine. Actually, I think most people I grew up with would call Perry a Candy Ass if he couldn’t use something as simple as a .22 rifle or pistol to shoot a critter such as a coyote.

I don’t mean to belittle my friends who use laser sights. But wouldn’t you want to be thought of as a better shot than someone who needs 21st century hardware to  kill something from many, many centuries before? Give me a break, Goodhair. Big old macho guy, surrounded by a mess of cops and needs a fancy pants techno weapon to kill a coyote that may or may not have been a threat in the first place. What the hell is wrong with you, Rick Perry? What you got on? Your mind?

Here in the midst of restocking my “new” refurbished, replacement computer I thought I might pause a few minutes for obliqueness.

The photograph that I share is one I took last week while on vacation. The scene is a sector of one of the most memorable spots in my lifetime. I won’t go into the whole story. The  reason is that the person who owned that spot died the other day of something or other, from what we used to call old age. But there isn’t such a thing anymore.

Why I read this story today about a woman who is 113 years old. She is supposedly the oldest person in the U.S. and the fourth oldest in the world. I’d guess that as the crow flies,this elder lives between 50-70 miles from where this photo was taken. That is as specific as I’d like to get. Also, that is provided the lady is still living by the time you read this. I don’t mean to be rude. I am just being realistic. Plus, I’ve written too many stories about people who are PDO (Pretty Danged Old) and nothing takes the wind out of your sails as a writer when the live subject about whom you discuss is already yesterday’s news and the obituary from the day before.

So now the fellow who owned this little peace of heaven has passed on — something my journalism professor would have cussed me for writing — and my eulogy is only that the man was somewhat of a SOB. Now it’s not nice to speak of the dead. But somehow, I doubt this SOB would have minded being remembered as a SOB. That is because he seemed rather proud of his bearing. So, technically, I am not speaking ill of the dead, even though I am saying the person who owned this pretty spot of land was a SOB.

I speak as well about how beautiful the land was that he owned and the land around it. So what I am saying about this SOB is not all bad, just that he was a SOB. Billy Joel sang in one of his songs about how “only the good die young.” But we all know that isn’t true. The SOB wasn’t particularly young when he died. And I don’t even know the 113-year-old woman talked about in the newspaper story. She might just be the most wonderful lady ever made. Or not, but let’s hope so.

Peace be with you Ms. 113-year-old lady. And you too you old SOB with the pretty piece of property that is one of the most memorable spots in my life. There is beauty in life, spots and all. No matter if you are a nice old lady, a witch, a saint of a man, or a SOB with the coolest piece of land one could imagine.

It seems like I am always doing something with my computer. Well, today I received a replacement computer from Dell. We shall see what happens. Perhaps in a day or so everything will be up and running more better.

Speaking of, I saw my brother in ICU yesterday. He certainly seems to look well considering he had his chest cut open and ribs spread apart while much of the sac around his heart was stripped away. He’s back in a regular hospital bed this afternoon. That’s great and it’s also amazing.

I don’t know if anyone who has had any kind of major surgery can not think of how remarkable the human body can be. People fooling around with your heart and you’re up eating chicken two days later. And let’s see, just when was penicillin invented? Cheezeswhiz!

I hope my replacement computer is half as resilient as the human body. Chow mein.

We don’t want to engage in generalizations about a certain Western state.

But one cannot deny it can get pretty hot out in a lot of the dry, desert areas of  Arizona. Some may say don’t judge a book by its cover. Or, as Jimmy Buffett once said, “Don’t try to describe a KISS concert if you’ve never seen one.” Thus, I will attest that I spent the night in Tucson once on a day in which the high had been 115 degrees. Okay, I have also seen 115 degree temperatures in Western Australia and even 112 in Waco, Texas, during one unbearable summer. So what am I getting at?

Well, maybe it is the scorching heat and exposure to the heat over long periods of time that has caused some of Arizona’s lawmakers to perhaps bake their brains.

I speak of the law passed in Arizona that would require police to ask of anyone they stop the proof of their immigration status. Those who do not have proof of citizenship would be charged with a crime and could be detained if suspected of being in the country illegally. Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill just a short while ago, according to CNN.

Well, what is wrong with this if it will help slow down illegal immigration, which is acknowledged as a huge problem in this border state? It is kind of hard to find a starting point as to why this is a really bad idea.

First off, this will be challenged if it becomes law. It should be found unconstitutional on grounds of illegal search and seizure, among other reasons. But one never knows what will happen with the crazy side of the Supreme Court and whomever turns out to be the swing vote. Actually, one never  knows what the whole bunch will do in the first place.

Such a law is not only ripe for racial profiling, it practically requires such actions. Maybe you think it is okay to stop  — willy-nilly — brown-skinned people if it helps weed out illegal aliens. I don’t think that is neither fair nor a good idea. But what if it leads to stopping, detaining and arresting for lack of proof of citizenship if that person with dark skin is an American? Let’s say an American hero. A veteran. A firefighter. What if it’s your grandma, su abuela? What if it’s your daughter? What if it’s my daughter, who is of Hispanic descent, and whose experience in Mexico has amounted to maybe Cancun during spring break?

Or, what if the police stop you?  Yes you, white bread? Hey, cops here along the border know that all “Mexicans” aren’t brown. Some are white with blond hair and blue eyes. While they are at it, why don’t they just go ahead and arrest me? I am white, fair-skinned, but I could be some kind of Eurotrash, Irish terrorist or some old bald-headed American ex-Hippie who decided to become a friend of Mohammed. It goes to show you never can tell.

The Arizona immigration law is so knee-jerk that if  you were standing on the side of some tall mountain in Arizona, chances are you would be holding on to each leg as they extend outward while  you go flying toward a Roadrunner-like ending. The only difference would be the Roadrunner living to fight another day, while you …. well, not so much.

At one time, the type of folks who were elected to our state legislators were folks who were into “boosterism.” They were the ones who belonged to the local chamber of commerce, the Kiwanis Club, the Lions Club. These folks who got sent to do the people’s works wanted folks to come visit their communities and their states. They wanted people to spend money once they got there on lodging, food, tourist attractions, stores, hunting and fishing. Today, either lawmakers don’t care if anyone visits their state or cities or if they do, they are too stupid to realize that passing laws such as this anti-immigrant bill has so many opportunities for scaring away visitors that it is ridiculous.

Do Arizona lawmakers care about their state or local folks? They may think so by being hard-assed on the immigration issue, but they are going about it just as wrong as it can be done. Maybe when only militia-types or other wing-nuts wearing their bandoleers and all their guns show up, and the real tourists do not, will Arizona state fathers realize, oops, we may have misjudged things just a bit.

Alas. I like using the word “alas.” It reminds of the words “a lass.” Or so I guess.

But alas, I find myself wide awake at 8:06 a.m. on the first day of my first vacation of the year. Actually, it’s called “leave” in the gubmint, the same as we called vacation in the Navy.

My morning starts off with my monthly medication visit to the “doctor” at the VA Clinic. Then laundry. Then pay a bill. Then I’m off to Nacogdoches. That is in Texas. It’s actually the oldest town in Texas although a place outside El Paso claims to also be the oldest. Since I spent the golden years of my young adulthood in Nacogdoches, I vote for it.

The last few days have been kind of hectic. I think I had something go wrong with my computer, my phone and bank account all within a span of 24 hours. Dell finally threw in the towel. They had enough of my complaining and having them send a technician to fix it. They are going to replace my computer in “seven to 21 days.” Whatever. I finally screamed in CAPITAL LETTERS on a bank chat site yesterday which enabled me to access my money again. As for my phone, it won’t let me use speaker phone but only, it seems, with Dell. Whatever.

On a personal note — as if the copy I have used to fill my blog this morning in has not been personal — my brother is in the hospital in Houston facing open heart surgery later this week at Methodist Hospital. If he is using his laptop and sees this: Hey Brother, hang in there. Get well soon! I will see you later this week.

I suppose I should get ready for my trip to the VA. More later. Perhaps today from Nacogdoches and if not tomorrow from Nacogdoches. And sorry for the sentence. Fragments. It’s a bad habit that hits me every now and then. Blame it on Facebook. Or laziness. But alas, I’m on vacationleave.