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Phyllis passes. Todd Akin and the ‘Immaculate Misconception.’ And the ‘P-words’ in media use.

A few odds and ends to think about today.

Phyllis Diller died last night in her sleep at the age of 95. Diller used to make all of us, my parents and me, laugh. It wasn’t just that this queen of comedy looked funny with her wild hair and sometimes witch-like appearance. She knew she possessed just the right mix of funny and bizarre.

Diller seemed to grow funnier as she aged. Rest in peace, funny lady.

Perhaps today’s Tea Party politician feels as if they can totally ignore history. For instance, Congressman Todd Akin who is running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate seat in Missouri must not have ever heard of failed Texas GOP gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams.

Williams wasn’t doing so badly against Ann Richards in the Texas race for governor until he told a joke in public that likened weather to rape. “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it,” Williams said.

Now Akins is in a national s**tstorm after he made remarks about what has to be labeled “the immaculate misconception.” Akins seemed to pooh-pooh the subject of rape and pregnancy resulting from it.

Hotter than a cat on a hot tin roof. That is how one might react to the saga of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot. Three members of the feminist punk band were sentenced to prison after performing a song protesting Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox Church cathedral.

As Huffington Post correctly points out the American media, mostly TV, have been somewhat short of the proverbial “one-eyed cat peepin’ in a seafood store.” Speaking frankly, some get a little timid when it comes to “pussy.” At least to certain uses of the word do some news folks find themselves in a fit of timidness. I heard CNN’s Erin Burnett use the name, Pussy Riot, tonight. Good for her. Err, I think I’ll stop there. I remember writing a story for a newspaper once where I probably held a personal best for using the word “penis” multiple times. But for some reason, it is more acceptable to use “penis” than “pussy” in some some media venue. Wonder why that is? Meow and good night.

 

 

 

 

 

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A long, twisted T.O. journey: Does it end in Seattle or is it already over?

Expect high gridiron drama in the Northwest this fall.

No, Coach Eric Taylor from “Friday Night Lights” — played by Emmy winner Kyle Chandler — is not headed for a chance to coach the Oregon Ducks nor even the Western Oregon Wolves for that matter. No indeed, the drama will be real and plenty if the past is an indication. Yeah buddy, we’re talking T.O.

Drama seems to follow Terrell Owens at every stop. Negotiations are under way so that the next stop on the T.O. Traveling Show is Seattle.

Like the proverbial bad penny, Terrell Eldorado Owens, might catch a pass in the NFL for the first time in almost 30 months if he signs with the Seattle Seahawks. And that possibility seems to be more than idle chatter right now. ESPN reports that the Seahwaks liked what they saw when T.O. worked out Monday. The star receiver, now 37 years old, was not offered any NFL deals last year after knee surgery. Owens ended up playing in a very contentious situation with the Allen Wranglers, an Indoor Football League team that is based just north of Dallas. The Wranglers released Owens, who is No. 2 on the list of all-time NFL career receiving yards, at 15,934, behind Jerry Rice, in something akin to a bad divorce. The Wranglers reportedly took the Jeep Wrangler the team had given him and evicted him from a house in which he was allowed to stay by the team.

Folks sometime get a shock when they recall just how prolific a receiver T.O. has been. No. 2 behind Rice? That’s ahead of receiving legends like Randy Moss and Cris Carter, Michael Irvin, Lynn Swann, Mike Ditka and Rocket Ismail. There is a reason though why Owens is sometime overlooked for his greatness. That reason is called “drama.”

What T.O. doesn’t create in the way of drama while playing for a team — he’s played for five teams — then that drama seems to follow him around.

Here is a list of his “antics” as called by About.com. It’s amazing someone had the time to research and write them up. A few stick out in my own head:

  • Star stealer — I remember driving back to Waco after a weekend out of town in Dallas in September 2000 . Driving the 90 or so miles down I-35E, I was listening to the Cowboys and 49ers game on the radio. Owens scored and then created a big fuss when he ran with the ball to mid-field and posed on the Dallas star. He repeated that action and got hammered by Cowboy free safety George Teague. That is pretty much Teague’s legacy as “Defender of the Star.” It pretty much was the start of the drama in the professional life of T.O.
  • Here you go — Owens scored a touchdown against what may be his sixth team in 2002 during a game in Seattle. He pulled a “Sharpie” out of his sock and autographed the ball, then handed it to his financial adviser who was sitting in the end zone luxury suite that was rented by the Seahawks cornerback he beat for the TD.
  • You damn dance stealer — T.O.  stole the dance of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and performed it after scoring a touchdown.
  •  Return to the Star — Spending three seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, Owens managed to spread what was his signature discontent. In September 2006, while I was staying in Allen for awhile, I saw a breaking news story about T.O. being taken to the hospital after what was reported and seemingly verified in police reports to be a suicide attempt. Owens said he had a reaction taking supplements and pain pills, the latter turned out out to be hydrocodone.

T.O. finished a relatively (relatively speaking) calm season with the Buffalo Bills and was productive with the Cincinnati Bengals before suffering a knee injury. After failing to land a spot after knee surgery came the ridiculousness with the Allen Wranglers, which I suppose was not around when I spent about a half year in Allen in 2006. Still, Owens seemed to leave discontent wherever he has ended up.

I watch the USA Network television series “Necessary Roughness” although I have mixed feelings about it. I haven’t read anything to indicate that it is so but the main character “Terrance (T.K.) King,” a pro football receiver who regularly sees the Callie Thorne psychologist character, certainly seems as if it is based on Terrell Owens. Owens even showed up as a guest on a season finale show which threw a wrench in the works as far as I was concerned.

The way I feel about great pro football players is that they should go out at their zenith. Owens has had his stunts in reality TV. He has played in a Super Bowl. He is fourth in career NFL TD receptions along with his 2nd in reception yards. No doubt he is, or was, a great player. Maybe we will see if he had gone to the mountain top if he gets the gig with the Seahawks. Most often, Owens has come off looking like a caricature of himself. He has seemed a Typhoid Mary of discontent, a person one step removed from real greatness and whose attention seeking always seems to grab the better of him.

Could this be his chance, a real chance for greatness for Terrell Owens? Stay tuned. It hasn’t been a boring journey so far, albeit many times a sad one.

 

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You won’t see this …

A lot of my more conservative friends — more conservative than what I do not know — sometimes send me e-mails about something on the reactionary side that many times bears the subject line: You Won’t See This on CNN, or CBS or blah. I usually delete it with much haste. No just kidding.

Well this time, I have a story that I can say “You won’t see this … ” on CNN or Fox or maybe anywhere except in Spanish-speaking local TV stations in  South Texas. It is a bizarre little story from Texas Observer columnist Cindy Casares, who specializes in issues of the Latino community. The story concerns the shooting of an “ICE” agent, or agent of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in South Texas near the border with Mexico. The agent was expected to recover and was not wounded by drug cartel members, as far as anyone has said.

The incident apparently stemmed from the agent, Kelton Harrison, staking out a rural neighborhood northeast of McAllen at 3:30 in the morning. Pedro Alvarado, 41, reportedly believed the car in which Harrison was in and which had its lights turned off, had been casing the neighborhood for some kind of  criminal activity. One might think of it as a rural South Texas neighborhood crime watch, if you will.

Alvarado began pursuing the unmarked car while his sons, one 18 and the other 16, shot at the vehicle Harrison was driving. The adult Alvarado suspects were charged in federal court on assaulting a federal officer and knowingly carrying a gun during a violent crime. I suppose one could UN-knowingly carry a gun during a violent crime. Just sayin.’ The Juvenile was charged with attempted capital murder in state court. The 18-year-old reportedly gave a full confession, according to the story by Ms. Casares, and told authorities the father told the sons to get their guns. They dutifully responded with a .22-caliber rifle and 9-mm handgun. Harrison crashed his car during a pursuit and, luckily I suppose for him, was soon joined by fellow Homeland Security investigators. The agent was then soon taken to the hospital where he underwent surgery for his wounds.

The whole episode was apparently complicated by the fact two undocumented men from El Salvador were found during a search of the Alvarado home and are being considered material witnesses.

Ms. Casares raises some interesting questions about the incident. I will let you make your own decisions as to the situation. I just think it was a really strange story and this was the first time I had heard anything about it, not that my lack of knowledge of the incident means anything.

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The Cajun TV Explosion: Hey, don’t forget the Texas Cajuns

Ga lee ! Dey be Cajun everywhere you see. Sho nuff!

Yes, it seems like cable TV found Cajun Man and Cajun Woman and Cajun Alligator and Cajun Cop and the whole shebang. It is astonishing the number of shows on TV now with “Cajun” in its name or is featuring those who live down in the bayou country.

You can find the Landrys clan, including Troy be say “Choot ’em.” He be talkin’ ’bout de alligator no? These are among the folks –including the Gator Queen Liz Cavalier — who work all day in the swamps chasing those alligator. Sometimes the plural get lost in the bayou, he. Dang, just found that pronoun we lost down in Bayou Loco. The “Swamp People” of which I speak can be found on the History Channel. What the show has to do with history, I haven’t a clue. If it was supposed to have a tie with history they could at least talk about the “stars’ ” ancestors and how they come to be where they are. It would probably be more interesting than chootin’ gator.

Also, the History Channel has “Cajun Pawn Stars.” I can see in some loose thread how this has something to do with history because some things pawned might or might not have a link to the past. Says the channel:

  “In Cajun Pawn Stars, which puts a southern spin on History’s hit series Pawn Stars, a cast of quirky characters continues this age-old tradition. At the famed Silver Dollar Pawn & Jewelry Center in Alexandria, Louisiana, an eclectic array of historical merchandise is on display, with items ranging from vintage cars to firearms to livestock.”

Scenes of Beaumont, in Cajun Texas, are shown in Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Lifetime series “The Client List.” Jennifer might not be Cajun but with that rapidly vanishing cleavage, she can be Ukrainian if she wants.

While there may be more Cajun madness, don’t you know you have to include a cop show. Yes, “Cajun Justice.” This is on A & E and features the good folks of the Terrebone Parish Sheirff’s Department. The parish is located southwest of New Orleans and borders the Gulf of Mexico. Now this is Cajun Country. So far, the deputies have caught camp house burglars, a couple of guys drinking beer and releasing flares, and broke up a fight between shrimpers.

After BP flooded their land with oil, I am glad to see the Cajuns getting some recognition. But man, what about the rest of the Cajuns? I speak of those who reside in Cajun Texas, also known as Southeast Texas.

“Texas Almanac,” the Bible of all things Texas estimates that almost 375,000 Cajuns live in Texas. Census figures show that Houston has more Cajuns than New Orleans. That isn’t such an earth-shattering fact if you know a little about New Orleans. It is more a French Creole town than a Cajun one. With its melting pot including Italian, the city’s language seems more something coming from Brooklyn. Between 20-to-30 percent of Jefferson County, where I live, consists of Cajun residents. Being so close to Louisiana it is not too surprising Jefferson County has the second largest Cajun population in the state behind Houston’s Harris County.

One cable show, CMT’s Gator 911, is based here in Beaumont. The show — with new episodes airing beginning July 14 — follows the exploits of folks from the Gator Country adventure park who rescue gators that show up in local folks’ swimming pools or in the back of their pickup trucks. Don’t have a gator in the back of your pickup truck? Get one! I don’t know if the show’s principal, Gary Saurage, is a Cajun but if he isn’t he should be made an honorary one.

Scenes from the sexy Lifetime night soap “The Client List” are filmed here in Beaumont, but mostly fleeting glances. The show’s main character, played by buxom Jennifer Love Hewitt, supposedly lives in Beaumont and commutes to her job in Sugar Land. I don’t think the actress, who grew up in the Waco-Temple area, is Cajun but I bet she could play a good one. With the expanding cleavage Jennifer Love Hewitt so often reveals on her show, who will notice what she says anyway?

Who knows what’s next if the cable executives mine the Cajun connection here in Southeast Texas, maybe Cajun Refinery Worker, or Cajun TV Weatherman or Cajun Texan Bait Shop Owner?

*Learn more about Cajun Texas from this bilingual academic paper

 

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Paper purchases such as those in Texas by Buffett group signal signs of hope

Newspapers have taken hits over the past decade. A combination of economic factors combined with the technological explosion including the Internet have shaken the foundations of the printed paper.The turmoil continues to this day what with Advance Publications leaving a good portion of the Gulf Coast without newspapers printed daily in New Orleans, Pascagoula, Miss., and Mobile, Ala.

Still, some signs suggest the ink-stained wretch may not be relegated to the past.

Economic stresses of one type or the other seemed to plague the newspaper industry for most of the 15 years I worked full-time for three papers. Well actually four as I was managing editor for an 8,000-circulation weekly but the fit was wrong and I quit after less than a month there so I don’t count it. One factor in particular affecting papers was the cost of newsprint which rose along with the cost of energy. Various other changes in the market, while not drastic, made its impact on the industry such as in classified advertising. When I first started working as a small-town weekly newspaper editor in 1990, the classified ad was quickly headed down a dark alley. The growth of Wal-Mart also made its mark on newspaper fortunes when its stores popped up, seemingly overnight, and drove smaller, established businesses — also newspaper advertisers — out of business.

Lo and behold came the Internet and rocked newspapers to the very core of the way they operated, in both the news and monetary end. The “pajama-clad” Internet commentator hailed the demise of the printed newspaper. The “citizen journalist” would now take over and save the world. Many editors and publishers foolishly believed the anonymous experts who said newspaper would become a relic of the past thanks to their beloved “Internets,” as one U.S. president used to call it.

But not so fast my PJ-attired friends. All is not as it seems. For instance, while his neighboring newspapers to the east and west — owned by the aforementioned Advance Publications and that are set to send many score of employees packing as well as cutting back on printed editions — The Sun Herald on the Mississippi Gulf Coast has its engines set at full speed ahead.

Glenn Nardi, president and publisher, of the Biloxi-based 47,000-daily/56,000-Sunday daily wants to see the paper grow through print, Web and phone.

 “To paraphrase Mark Twain: ‘Reports of print’s death are greatly exaggerated.’ In fact, the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the nonprofit organization created and supported by the advertising community to measure newspaper and magazine audiences, reports that newspaper paid circulation grew in the last audited six-month period.”

One of the five richest people on the planet also sees something worth putting his money where his mouth is when speaking of papers. Berkshire-Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett is purchasing newspapes left and right, no pun intended, seeing as how Buffett has been a major backer of President Obama. And some see Obama as left wing. Get it? Oh forget it. The one-time paper boy, Buffett, bought his hometown Omaha World-Herald and hasn’t stopped buying newspapers.
The Omaha World-Herald Co. subsidiary of Berkshire announced last week it has bought its second Texas newspaper, the Waco Tribune-Herald, after purchasing the Bryan-College Station paper, the Eagle. The company also announced today that it closed the deal on purchasing the 63 newspaper properties of Media General with its largest property The Tampa Tribune. A full-disclosure note, this blogger is closely connected to someone who spent almost a decade as a writer at the Waco newspaper. Since I am limited by a confidentiality agreement, I can’t say much more about the Waco Trib except it was and remains a very good daily paper. The Berkshire-Hathaway people are purchasing the Trib from Robinson Media, which bought the Trib from Atlanta-based Cox newspapers. Waco insurance magnate Clifton Robinson and his son, Gordon, bought their hometown paper three years ago but said they are convinced that it should be run by “media professionals.” The paper made news not long after the Robinsons took over the Trib when they put “In God We Trust” on the paper’s flag, the Page 1 newspaper name at the top. Perhaps that isn’t so far out since Waco is home to Baylor, the world’s largest Baptist university, which was also attended by both Robinsons. Buffett has said editorial decisions will be left with local newspapers such as editorial board choice of candidates.
Maybe Buffett, like the Waco family Robinson, just always wanted to own newspapers. But the “Omaha Oracle” isn’t too sloppy with his business acumen. Perhaps the purchases by Berkshire-Hathaway are a whim. But  I would imagine many who know business much better than I do would doubt it.
It will be interesting to see how a familiar paper turns out under the chairmanship of Warren Buffett. I hope for only good, as I think the purchases by Berkshire-Hathaway signal ahead.