For every expectation: a, there is a postulated result: b, that is presumed to produce a known or unknown state: c. However, the realization of that state is instead the known and much dreaded result of xyz$@*%!@*#!

The requirement that a local police officer check the immigration status of someone they have detained for traffic or other reasons makes no sense other than the dislike for one’s skin being a different color. Should this law eventually get the go-ahead, how many Latinos “born in the U.S.A.,” as Mr. Springsteen once sang, will be arrested and go to jail for nothing but being Latino? It doesn’t just threaten those of darken skin shades. Local police officers have different ways of interpreting different laws and sometimes those interpretations are wrong. So ask yourself this: Is the wrongful arrest of your son or daughter or grandchild worth your wrath over those who are here illegally?

That’s something to think about, Jedge.

Thanks,

Dick

These are just some thoughts as I attempted to embed a journalist video of The Byrds “I Will Be Feeling a Whole Lot Better” onto the blog and got a “Trojan Horse” warning from the lady on my avast antivirus program. Thanks lady. This is the second encounter I have had with a virus on this page. Well, maybe more than that if you consider page views, damn Internet jargon! So, it seems I will have to consult with Paul, my IT wizard in Japan. Maybe I’ll write a song about him. Maybe not.

Now a lot of the weather forecasters, including the most always careful National Hurricane Center, do not have a lot of high expectations for what is now called TD 3. That’s a good thing, Martha. There is all that oil there in the Central Gulf floating around that the national media seems transfixed upon. Okay, that is a low blow. I too am concerned about the oil and the attempt to permanently stop the leak and get the mega mess cleaned up. It just seems the national media never really shows the concern that they should for the not so sexy spots on the map. That is, they don’t pay attention to it until a hurricane comes and gives a good shot for an anchor to do a “Dan Rather” and perform the now highly-cliched exercise of standing in a wind that is potent enough to knock one down.

The five-day “Cone of Doom” lays out a tremendously uncertain path for a storm of a magnificently conjectural terminations.

Hey, there are people out there in places other than New Orleans! Cameron, La., was obliterated 53 years ago. The National Weather Service in Lake Charles now puts the total deaths at 500. The unknown toll has teetered between 300–500 for years. Audrey came in with a 12-foot  storm surge on the town some three feet above sea level with winds gusts estimated at 150 mph.

Some 50 years later, Hurricane Rita socked the little town and parish seat of Cameron once again with a storm surge of around 12 feet and with 100-mph winds in tow. The death toll has always been screwy with Rita but one report said one person died in Cameron. Nevertheless, from one who visited not long afterward, little stood there after Rita other than the Cameron Parish Courthouse.

As was the case with Rita, the 1,200-some odd residents of Cameron had long ago learned when a hurricane is coming, there is no reason under the sun you can’t see to stick around. So when Ike once again flattened Cameron in 2008 with massive 22-feet tidal surges, folks got out of its way.

Cameron is only one town. There were many others in the path of Rita and Ike and Gustav and Katrina and on and on. I just picked Cameron because I visited it for a vacation day less than a year after Rita slammed it.  I sat around on a rainy, cold afternoon at some bar in the tiny downtown Cameron — impressed that it had more than one bar — that disappeared after Rita, listening that afternoon, laughing and drinking some beers with a bunch of aging Cajun men and later with a dazzling Acadian lady who was probably the best looking woman in Cameron. Then, I visited that same place a year later for a story I was writing and saw very little I knew that remained of this pleasant little place I had once visited other than the big, old courthouse which seemed to be perched up on a hill, if you can call three or four feet a hill.

TD 3 may not be much more than it now is. It may be a tropical storm, which is what a lot of the models seem to predict. It seems headed for the middle Louisiana coast, although some models put the center of the storm landing around Cameron or Sabine Pass, Texas. The latter of which is about 45 miles north of where I live.

But as I have said and have said again, now with experience, tropical weather flare-ups seldom go where they are supposed to go. They also sometime do what they aren’t supposed to do. I say that not to scare anyone, nor to make it look as if I am smack dab in the middle of danger, like I have been before with a couple of these storms. I am just saying what I am just saying. It’s hurricane season, ya’ll. Time to keep heads up. Crank up the old The Clash CD and fixate on “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and dance around until you have a plan in case things start getting nasty.

Does that sound like a plan?

Too bad the big question isn’t: Who is Lindsay Lohan?

I might have seen her in a movie. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I did once. I think she played this juvenile delinquent-type character. Perhaps it was an autobiopic.

The truth is that I don’t watch a lot of movies until they make it to television. And that doesn’t take all that long these days does it? I would never knowingly watch a movie just because it starred Lindsay Lohan. I wouldn’t even watch a movie just because it starred anyone, not even Clint Eastwood, not even John Wayne, rest his soul, not even Salma Hayek. Well, I could make exceptions.

I know Lohan is a big star and she is even more famous because she is infamous. She keeps screwing up. She comes to court late on her sentencing date and on the date she is to report to jail. In other words, she is a twit. Either she is a twit or she is just really messed up on “substances,” or both she is a twit messed up on substances. Got to be one or the other, plus maybe she thinks it is good PR. Who said that even bad PR is good PR? Was that what was said? I don’t know.

A helicopter followed Lindsay Lohan all the way to jail this morning just to see if a photograph could be snapped of her in handcuffs, wearing no underpants. No luck there.

I’ve known people who have gone to jail. Real people. People who aren’t famous and who are just like you and me. I’ve known people who’ve gone to prison. We all know someone who is going through something that some of these famous people we’ve never heard of, sometimes go through, and more. Some of these non-famous people have much more interesting stories than Lindsay Lohan. But most aren’t as famous or as rich or as rich and about to be has-beens if they don’t quit snorting coke or shooting up or whatever it is they are doing to f**k up.

These real people aren’t followed by helicopters. For that, I am grateful. Some people I know might just take a pot shot at “Chopper Dave,” who after all is only doing his job.

The rich and famous are followed and make the news because they are rich and famous. The “common” folks just love to see the big fall far. The real people also like to live vicariously through the Lindsay Lohans of the World. Oh, they cuss them and call them idiots, but like slowing down to watch a car wreck, the real people want to know what the beautiful people are doing every minute of the day.

Too bad the real people don’t realize just how fascinating they are. Who in the World knows what goes on in the minds of the not rich and obscure.

It means that the temp is going to be hotter ‘n hell. Hotter than a $2 pistol. Hot enough to fry a construction worker on the sidewalk holding an egg in one hand and Jimmy Dean Pure Pork Sausage in the other.

I mention this for Arlington is where I am going this weekend. Why? Is it not hot enough where I live 45 miles north of Sabine Pass, Texas? Well, it will be hot in Beaumont. This is, after all, mid-July. But there will be a slight chance of thunderstorms and not nearly as hot as in North Central Texas.

My mind usually equates North Central Texas with heat and big thunderstorms and hail. I once saw a storm rain down baseball-sized hail and left the ground in April look as if a blizzard had come through. Oh, the winters are cold there too. I’ve lived in several places in Central and North Central Texas for various periods of time and found the weather is most disagreeable with me.

But I am going to visit some old college friends. These friends were educated, as I  was at the “School of Steve” or “Steve  U.” a.k.a. Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, By God, Texas. So I know my friends are smart enough to have plenty of air conditioning. Thank goodness. Because it’s going to get hot I tell you.

Just as one shouldn’t write under the influence of alcohol or drugs, although Edgar Allen Poe sure gave it the old Baltimore try, one shouldn’t write under the influence of pain. Unfortunately, I do that sometime. What is even worse, I write under the influence of pain, mostly without telling anyone. All kinds profundities appear and why would that happen?

There are times that I may write something  such as “much to my chagrin” and I write it just because it is easier to write a cliche than it is to think and explain what one is actually trying to say. I have no idea what “much to my chagrin” means. It don’t mean much to me, but it means much to my chagrin. My little pet chagrin that I keep in a cage with its tiny little wheel.

No. I am lying. I know what “much to my chagrin” means. I was just trying to fool the reader into thinking I was coming clean after years of writing like I know what I am doing. But I really know what I am doing. I just don’t want the reader to know that all the time so I can lure that person into my web of comfort. To let them feel, for just one moment, like they are much more superior to this person writing this garbage. Why would I do that? I haven’t the clue.Well, yes, I actually do. You see, I am a habitual liar. No I’m not. I just lied about being a liar so I could confuse the reader. And why in the world would I want to confuse the reader, the person who reads my words?

Beats me. Much to my chagrin.

I say stronger words than those when I complain of a back pain, so why not have a formal conversation with my back?

Uh, perhaps because it cannot talk back. My back don’t give me no back talk. That sounds as if it could have been a great 50s R & B song. Which is a perfect segue because I was thinking about something from almost that long ago related to my aching back.

If there was one thing my brothers and I could agree upon, it was our devotion for “The Three Stooges” and their memorable bits. Now even 50 years later if one of my brothers mentions a backache — other than heart problems back disorders are legendary among the five of us brothers — it immediately turns into a Stooges’ bit.

“Oh, you got a weak back?”

“Yeah.”

“How long have you had it?”

“Oh, about a week back.”

When your back gives you loads of misery it seems humor is a good potion to try when you don’t have something stronger on hand, like Valium or Morphine. However, a good “adjustment” sometimes helps too.

I don’t get my back adjusted anymore because I am afraid my spine would snap like a drought-stricken corn stalk. But when I was younger and would get muscle spasms in my back, a trip to my doctor or the old retired chiropractor would seem pretty helpful.

Even in my mid-20s I would get back spasms. Some probably had to do with my line of work as a firefighter. Or perhaps they came from other activities — like well, going to ice cream socials, right. My doctor was an osteopath, which is a doctor trained in medicine but takes a more holistic approach to treatment. One such approach is giving adjustments like chiropractors do. These adjustments were quite helpful. I kept getting them for quite awhile until my doctor started having his own back problems. Too bad the physician couldn’t heal himself.

I also used to go see the old retired chiropractor who lived just up the street from me. He wouldn’t practice unless someone would come by and ask, and then he only charged a $10 bill for his service.

This is one of these days I have an aching back. From what, I don’t know. I have just had these back spasms since I was a young adult. Maybe these spasms originated 30 years ago we loaded ammunition on our ship for our 3-inch cannons. The ammo weighed about 50 pounds apiece. Once, when we were leaving drydock we stopped at Seal Beach and picked up all of our ammo. I was part of a human chain loading those suckers all afternoon and into the night. Another time we loaded from a “Vert-rep,” for “vertical replenishment.” This meant unloading shells from a huge helicopter and stowing them about three decks below. I don’t know if either loading caused any permanent damage. I doubt it did. It sure made me respect the hell out of having smaller weapons to fire, if you get my drift.

I guess I will try treating myself the old-fashioned way — with an Old Fashioned! No, just kidding. I will take my medicine as prescribed and then jump in bed and pull the covers over my head if that doesn’t work. I will also try to laugh by thinking of the Three Stooges and their ridiculous bits. At least Doctors Curly, Larry and Moe don’t charge you outrageous rates and send you back for test after test after test, with seemingly no result in sight. Of course, they have no malpractice insurance either. Nyuck, Nyuck, Nyuck.

Never let it be said that I lack empathy. But one has to stifle a chuckle — the kind of when you whisper a funny about the deceased during a funeral — when you see the rest of the U.S. is hotter than Hell. After all, it is the snow-mobile-ridin,’ ice-fishing, 50-below-swimmin’ Polar Bear Club-types who flick off a comment when they hear of Dallas being paralyzed during a snow or ice storm. Or they hear of schools shutting down.

“That ain’t nothing,” says Thor of the Frozen North.

Well, 102 or 103 in New York or Philly is hot. And 91 in Montreal, something’s out of whack, eh?

The fact is we, speaking of the people down in these parts (Southeast Texas) live with such temperatures pretty often. Oh, it doesn’t go over 100 degrees here every day. Some summers it doesn’t even get to 100. But others do. And the humidity. It’s killer, dude. It gets so humid that there are times when you either don’t depend on one shower or bath to last you during the day, or you just say “the hell with it.”

There are old and old and poor folks up in the Northeast that have a hard time dealing with the heat. I hope they get fans and access to some places to cool down. For those who mouth about how their cold winters “ain’t nothing,” well, you are right. That’s why, at least I, live where I do.