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Do you know enough to live in the “promised land?”

It seems as if our great folk here in the “Promised Land” that is America would just take those little brown children illegally crossing our borders and throw them out of the US of A onto their little asses.

Well, that is the way it seems if you watch the national news on TV. Those pictures, every picture, tells a story don’t it? Loved Rod Stewart’s song by that name, by the way. But sometimes the pictures don’t tell the whole story. Such is true when it comes to complex stories such as the current border problem.

A poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute shows the juxtaposition of thought when it comes to the so-called “border problem.”

The poll finds that more than three-quarters of those interviewed believe immigrant children should be allowed to stay as refugees if it can be proved that their lives are in peril upon being returned home.

One has to wonder why the media, especially the electronic variety, take their time showing the opposite view? Their view from the camera makes it seem like hordes of people — children and young thugs — are virtually breaking down the walls of the borders only to be faced with angry sign-carrying opponents.

It could be that the electronic media has found itself an issue that can keep emotions rolling and viewers watching. Oh that Anderson Cooper wouldn’t do that. Yeah, tell me another lie.

Here is something else to ponder while we are talking about the immigration issue. There are a lot of those tough-talking Americans out there who would otherwise cry to see their favorite flower cut down or the sight of a fictitious doe deer die. But still with the signs! The damned signs!

I came across something I wish these sign-carrying bunches denouncing immigration of little children could sit down with and spend a little time. It’s a list of sample questions that immigrants are asked before becoming U.S. citizens. One needs 58 percent correct to pass. I must say I was a little shocked and somewhat ashamed that I scored only 94 percent rather than 100. I am, after all, someone who has made his living writing over time. I minored in political science in college. So what? I still missed six questions.

But what about you? Let’s see what you make, smart boy. Take the test and see if you make an ample score that ensures your citizenship, if you had to vie for it. If you don’t do so good and are honest about it. Maybe you should take down your anti-immigrant signs and posters, and put them somewhere the sun does not shine. That would seem appropriate.

 

 

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A low-budget jury?

This morning I got up got shaven got dressed went downtown and sat through jury enpanelment for almost an hour. Myself and maybe more than 150 citizens of my county will get the grand total of $6 for our trouble. Some 40 prospective jurors were selected for the county’s criminal court. They will receive $40 for at least one day of service if they are picked for an actual jury. The same amount goes for any additional day of service.

The district clerk said this was an unusual occurrence. Originally the clerk was tasked with selecting four different jury panels of 40 people. Her problem is usually having a sufficient number of citizens to fill the panels. Jefferson County District Clerk Jane Birge was appointed to the post after the death of longtime clerk Lolita Ramos in October 2013.

The selection process this morning proceeded much faster than I had originally imagined after the clerk told us how we were file our of our seats in order that our jury number might be scanned. At the same time we picked up a sheet which we could sign in order to donate our $6, or more, to a statewide victims fund and a countywide foster care fund.

Most likely there are ways that the process might flow even faster. I don’t expect Ms. Birge to tackle changes to hasten and perhaps even save money in jury enpanelment. The district clerk said she had no intent of running for the office after her unexpired term expires in January 2015. I can’t blame her for that. Who needs the headache?

I hope that whomever the people elect to this office will take a look at how this jury selection process can be streamlined. I don’t know what rules govern this process, but it doesn’t hurt to at least attempt constructing a better mousetrap. Our lives are full and busy these days. I’d say that even the least paid of us is worth more than $6 an hour.

Likewise we must feed our jury pool. When we think of voting we most likely consider the higher offices such as our lawmakers our district attorneys the sheriffs the judges. But down ballot races are the so-called meat and potatoes of our local democracy.

I’m done preaching and writing with as little punctuation possible just to see what the latter feels like for writers employing such styles the likes of Cormac McCarthy. In the meantime I will sit and imagine what all that $6 for my service today might buy me.

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Rainy day tales from a pissed-off semi-retired journalist

Ann Coulter, the attention-seeking missile, has managed to finagle her way into the American conversation once again with her rant against soccer and the World Cup. Pttttewwwie. That is my spelling of a spit that comes from me. I know that spit is not good for my computer so I will just spell it, and not spit it. What I will not do is give that, well, I can’t use the word I would like, but I will not give her any more of my attention.

So it’s a rainy Friday afternoon. CNN is on my screen but the volume is not engaged. Wolf Blitzer is on TV talking to a Republican House Ways and Means Committee member about some missing IRS emails. “GOP outrage at missing e-mails,” is the “Developing Story” headline. This, in these days where every little happenstance is a “Breaking News” story.  Boy, they set the bar so low.

I once received a corporation-wide monetary award that I shared with another reporter. Both of us are gone from the paper and in the government sector. Well, I’m just part-time. Here is what happened:

I wasn’t Cops reporter anymore but I got to the paper an hour early so I could, usually, leave an hour early. I was the only one in the newsroom. I heard a call on the police scanner, a sheriff’s department dispatcher said there had been a helicopter crash. I called the sheriff’s department and got what information I could. An Army Black Hawk, on a foggy morning, crashed into a TV tower out in the countryside. It turned out bad, all seven on board including a brigadier general were killed.

The editor came in pretty soon and I told him what was going on. Best I can recall, he sent the other reporter at the scene and told me to “rewrite.” The latter term is now sort of a dinosaur. In the olden days — before I was even a reporter — a newspaper would have reporters in the field calling in their stories or pieces of story by land-line phones and the rewrite men (and women) would craft the story together. I only did it a couple of times and both times I just saw what was happening and took off from there, figuratively speaking, after a few seconds of direction from the editor. The other story was about a fatal charter bus crash out on the interstate. We had three or four reporters on that.

This rewriting of breaking news, or deadline reporting as it is called in the business, was not something I really trained for but rather something I seemed to take on instinctively. I knew about the award before I left the paper — I don’t know if my confidential agreement is still in effect, maybe some day I may tell the story, there isn’t much to tell anyway — I collected my share after I began freelancing. I think maybe it was only $50. That is more than the average newspaper award.

You’ve no doubt heard the term “award-winning journalists.” Well, in some ways, journalism awards can be a dime a dozen. There is something really wrong with you if you haven’t won awards. I had collected, jeez, I don’t know how many awards from regional and one state press association in my first two years as a journalist. And I pretty much learned about running a small weekly on my own.

Awards are nice to have. I won a couple of Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Assn. awards, first places for my size of daily newspaper, which was below a major metro. I won environmental writer of the year from the statewide Sierra Club. I did okay in my job, in other words. The latter and the company award meant more to me personally. Regional and state press clubs are, while nice to have personally (like on a resume), more a bigger deal to the newspapers and its managers.

Back to Vulfenzblitzer, as I like to call him, I detest CNN making every other story “Breaking News.” Technically, they are correct but it cheapens the really big stories that reporters write or broadcast every day in different cities around the world. A Facebook friend of mine, a network radio reporter, is traveling around the East with Secretary of State John Kerry.  She and I met covering the court-martial of former Army Spc. Charles Graner, the alleged “ringleader” of the Abu Ghraib saga. Those are real stories and, of course, I have my Gee Dubya stories from interviewing him alone by ourselves when he was campaigning for his “Poppy” to I don’t know how many press conferences as governor and a few as president.

Really, I am not bragging as there really isn’t much to brag about. I just spent some incredible years as a journalist who was just doing his job, and then some as a freelancer. CNN’s repeated versions of “Breaking News” kind of cheapens my personal history. And I don’t like it very much, see?

Oh, “Breaking News” now about the VA. The Department of Veterans Affairs? I’ve written about it for years. I’ll save that for another day.

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Tea Party patriots in Mississippi whine in the end

I keep telling you, my Republican friends, you are about to end up Whigged.

Here is another example that the Grand Old Party needs to recruit some real members. The little chicken-shit Tea Party candidate who was most embodied by a supporter sneaking in an old folks home to take a picture of the wife of Republican establishment candidate Thad Cochran of Mississippi can’t even handle defeat like a man.

Too bad. Maybe when Senator Cochran reaches 100 those folks like Chris McDaniel and his supporters will have grown up a little bit.

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This week: Little Virginia college likely to have political representation

Probably most of the remaining world didn’t notice but I missed a few days of writing EFD this week. Most of the reason was medically-related. No, I haven’t been sick. I’ve just been sick of medical appointments.

I finally finished up a month’s worth of physical therapy after having arthroscopic surgery to remove torn meniscus cartilage in my knee. Then I had to see the doctor that did the surgery. That was later followed by a little added work at my job that the doctor has allowed. No, I still am not at 100 percent. All of that with my friends telling me: “Why I was back on the job the week after my knee surgery!” Well, maybe you were and maybe you are Peyton Manning. I don’t care. Each person responds differently to various surgery, even if that surgery is simply removing a torn knee cartilage. Some folks don’t require physical therapy. Some people do. Then there are others who have little success with physical therapy. I am one who fits in that category.

My hope is that I will gradually get stronger and my knee will work better. That’s because I have a lot of other crap that is wrong with me, like diabetes and chronic neck pain and chronic lower back pain. So there!

Due to a bunch of medical appointments this week, I have fallen behind on the news. All of a sudden, John McCain is on TV saying we should bomb Iraq. I thought his thing was bombing Iran? Oh well, Iran, Iraq, they both are only separated by a letter.

Then we’ve had the whole Bergdahl affair. There always must be something to keep the politicians fired up to make life a pisser for the rest of us.

Well, at least Eric Cantor was beat. But wait! That’s bad, Or is kind of bad. Take for instance, Democratic Party head Debbie Wasserman Shultz, went to Iowa ahead of that state’s Republican convention this weekend, to rub in just how bad things are for the GOP since an unknown, under-funded college professor beat the House majority leader in a congressional election earlier this week in Virginia.

 ”  … The Tea Party has taken control of the Republican Party. Period,” Schultz said after the Virginia GOP leader went down. “When Eric Cantor, who time and again has blocked common sense legislation to grow the middle class, can’t earn the Republican nomination, it’s clear the GOP has redefined ‘far right.’ Democrats on the other hand have nominated a mainstream candidate who will proudly represent this district and I look forward to his victory in November.”

Well, let’s just hope whomever it is, the Democrat who is running against whomever it was who beat Cantor, wins in November. One thing for sure, the winner of the congressional election will be a professor from tiny Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., unless Cantor decides to run as a write-in and is elected. Yes, it seems the little-known professor who beat the GOP House Majority Leader will face a Democrat who is also a little-known professor at Randolph-Macon College. At least it should be a great time for the local student newspaper “The Yellow Jacket.” Of course, stranger things have happened. There is nothing like a national news story to let the “big boys” in to kick the local journalists in the teeth.

Oh, Dave Brat is the Republican who beat Cantor. He will face Democrat Jack Trammell. Well if that don’t (sic) beat all.

Actually, I’ve been saying for several years now that the “big tent” is getting ready to fold. That the Republicans will eventually go away, the way of the Whigs. I suppose that would really neither be here nor there, if one takes a look back at he origins and dismantling of the Whigs or the Republican party.

It sounds like politics may have finally taken a historic turn. Or not.