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On vacation, so,

Cliff Lee and the Rangers didn’t look so great last night but there is always tonight or the next day or whenever. That’s the good thing about a best of seven series. That’s what I like about baseball, even when all looks as if it is going to Hell in a hand basket there remains calm about. Baseball will only elevate your blood pressure slowly as opposed to basketball or football. Whether that is healthy or not,  I don’t know.

But I know that I already had to rush in to do some real work today that was for some reason unfinished and my boss couldn’t call me about in the last 13 days while I was on leave, so I go in on this, my 55th birthday and work two hours. So I am planning to treat the rest of my time off this week as vacation. That even means no writing. That is, unless something comes  up that I feel I should write about.

So,

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So I lied. This time I will watch the Rangers.

So sue me. It’s been done before with unfavorable results for the plaintiff. Thankfully.

Not that I expect anyone to sue me but I did say awhile back right here in this humble little blog that I didn’t plan to watch the American League Championship Series pitting the playoff needy Texas Rangers against the World Champions for All Time New York Yankees. I think I saw all six games if I remember correctly. I swore that I wouldn’t though because I expected the Yankees to win as always.  The reason for such a ridiculous resolution was basically that this was a year I didn’t watch baseball.

My team is the Houston Astros. Although I have long considered myself a fan of the Rangers, I am not a fanatic. Of course, neither am I a fanatic about the Astros — especially since they stunk up Minute Maid Park this year — but I suppose I am less of a non-fanatic about the Rangers than the Astros. I have seen both teams play and rooted for both teams in their respective parks. Of course, the last time I actually saw Houston play live and in color was on opening day in 1987 when Mike Scott faced off with Dodgers’ hurler (I wonder if he ever really “hurled?” Orel Hershiser in the Astrodome. It also has been seven or so years since I saw the Rangers play at The Ballpark in Arlington.

I suppose that since the Astros pretty much stunk from the beginning I wasn’t too interested in baseball altogether. To real hardcore fans of the game, that must sound like I am a fair-weather fan. Maybe I am. Yet, like so many other people I have other matters on my plate. Some are important. Truthfully, many are not. I am sure I could have called up one of my Houston friends this baseball season, if they could take a day off because I surely can, and we could have gone to a game. It  just didn’t happen.


A-Rod: Expensive Yank for a 4-for-21 showing.

But I will likely watch all of the World Series games with the exception of Saturday because I will be hanging with friends in Galveston. Surely the Rangers can win one game without me.


Rangers’ Cliff Lee: I can fly. And throw off the page too.

Beside the fact that the Rangers have never played in the Series, much less have won one, there was quite a lot about this year’s bunch which intrigued me when I saw them beat the Yankees in the ALCS. First off, the influence of Rangers president and part-owner Nolan Ryan is unmistakable what with pitchers Cliff Lee and Colby Lewis going deep into late innings. Ryan is old school, back when a reliever was something you took for a sore shoulder. Texas also had some offense that kept the Yankees at bay in all but two games. Plus, it was also a kick seeing the Multimillion-Dollar Man Sir Alex Rodriguez with a dismal 4-for-21 performance in the six games, his long-ball prowess saved for perhaps some other seasons of the Yankees’ pissing millions away. I bear no ill will against A-Rod, just the fact that he played for the Rangers like teammate Mark Teixeira makes them natural villains in the Rangers world. No one except some truly sick individual would have wished Teixeira the pulled hamstring he received running out a ground ball in Game 4. But  you have to look at “Tex’s” performance over all in the ALCS to realize just how much the experience must have sucked for him, the injury topped off by his going 0-for-14. That happens to be the worst non-hitting streak for the Yankees in their post season history, according to ESPN.

The Rangers are packed with a pretty amazing and interesting group of individuals as well as saddled with a history that might leave one shaking their head for quite a bit. As for the San Francisco Giants, I couldn’t tell you jack about them except that Barry Bonds the “home run king” played for them as did a really dynamic player by the name of “Say Hey” Willie Mays. He is one of the old timers back in the days of Maris, Mantle, Koufax, Bob Gibson, and Boog Powell (can you imagine being called Boog?)  that I loved to watch play on the old black and white. Nolan Ryan was, if not in reality then in spirit, at the tail end of that generation.

Such a big game means a lot of sports and other types of writers have to start earning their keep finding stories relating to Texas, the Giants and the World Series. Some of these stories will be good and some, well perhaps not as interesting as they are in the minds of the writers and editors.

Nevertheless, this is a Series I relish, perhaps with pickles and mustard and wiener on a hot dog bun. Even if  I miss a game.

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I can drive 55. Can a Congress of Nuts do the same?

Two important dates are fast approaching: Thursday, the 28th of October and Tuesday, Nov. 2.

The latter date is probably more recognizable to, at least, some Americans as it is when the mid-term general elections will be held across the country. All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, slightly more than one-third of the Senate and about the same number of state and territorial gubernatorial seats of the nation will be voted upon.

The former date is the “double nickel.” It is the “*I can drive 55 day.” It is “Five from 60 Day.” It is my 55th birthday.

*A play on Sammy Hagar’s 1984 hit “I Can’t Drive 55.” Back when the speed limit was still 55. Jeez, seems so long ago.

I was writing this blog when I turned 50. It only felt a little strange. But the truth be known, turning 55 feels a lot strange. It means I’m getting on up there but I’m not quite there yet. Of course, my birthday has its perks. First a trip to Galveston this weekend to meet with a friend I’ve not seen in many a year. It should prove to be very interesting, and hopefully very fun. I am really excited about going. Next, as I have mentioned here before, my 55th birthday gets the ball rolling on my very small but meaningful retirement which actually begins Nov. 1. Finally, the best I can remember, I am already into my tenth year without tobacco.

It was a week before my birthday that I actually quit. I remember I went camping by myself back then for a few days in the Angelina National Forest. At some point during that trip I listened to the Gee Dubya and Spotted Owl Gore debate on my truck radio. I supported Gore but, like Gee Dubya’s annoying habit, I too like to give some people nicknames. As I recall the two of them droned on and on and on.

Getting back to the general election, it seems that we will probably have a Republican majority in the House and perhaps more GOPers in the Senate but perhaps one still held by the Democrats. Some of those elected may prove to be the nuts I have railed against before, people like Joe Miller of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, plus another round of Michelle Bachmann of Outer Space. I single out Miller and Paul because they bring a disturbing new trend to contemporary politics, that of thuggery. I mentioned recently that Miller’s “security” roughed up and handcuffed a reporter who was trying to ask the candidate a question. And last evening, some fairly good-sized male supporters of Paul, wrestled a young 110-pound woman to the ground and stomped on her head outside of a television studio where Paul was to debate Democratic opponent Jack Conway. The 23-year-old woman who was assaulted, Lauren Lizbeth Valle, is an activist with the liberal group MoveOn.org. Valle was wanting a picture with Paul while she displayed a sign that indicated Paul is a tool of big business. MoveOn.org officials said Valle suffered a concussion. The man who stepped on the woman’s head, Tim Profitt, told the Associated Press that a video taken of the incident was at a bad angle and that the incident looked worse than it  really did.

Yes, the camera puts what 10-15 pounds on you? It also makes you look like you are stomping on someone’s head.

Perhaps some of these wingnuts who may be elected will have henchmen who accompany them to Washington. My guess would be they won’t.  Instead the new senators, if elected, will likely gain all the manners necessary for them to begin making a big cash haul from megabusiness lobbyists and from huge organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who will likely give the rookie politicians their marching orders. Sure, the candidates talk tough, and can push a 20-year-old featherweights to the ground and give her head a stomp, but when all those big, supersized, unbelievably huge amounts of cash start rolling in, some of the new senators or congressmen will be just like some of the old legislators. I am not saying Miller or Paul would do this, but even the craziest bastards in the crowd can be tamed into a marching kitten by big money.

Likewise, the supporters of the extremists could just as easily end up greatly disappointed just as some of the far left have become with President Barack “The Kenyan Kid” Obama. Politicians will promise you the Sun, Moon and perhaps even Mercury, Venus and Mars when they are running for office. But as is often the case, either they are either deluding themselves and their supporters or are intentionally deluding their consituency.

I can always hope things will be different. Perhaps a divided government will prove just what this young, old nation needs right now. But I seriously doubt that will happen. Hopefully the most extreme will  not even come close to getting their way under Speaker of the House John “Boner” Boehner. Also, here is hoping the nutjobs don’t want to shut down the government. That would not be good for a lot of folks including some I know very well. In reality, a divided government is about the best to ask for right now. Even if through some remarkable circumstances the Democrats were able to maintain a majority in both Houses, Congress could very well remain as impotent and frustrating as it is now.

I feel I still, personally, have a lot to look forward to while achieving the big double-nickle. Just as there is hope for me, perhaps hope exists for our Congress and the nuts that get elected to it.

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Paladino lying or exercising his free speech?

It seems one cannot go six inches these days without running into a politician who is lying about his or her military service. It’s a little like making one’s way around a fowl yard without stepping into chicken s**t.

The latest who has stepped into it is Crazy Carl Paladino, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in New York, whose activities include e-mailing pictures of bestiality in action, who now has been caught in a lie about his very short time on active duty in the Army Reserve. The would-be gov’nor’s lies are not as outlandish as other claims from past politicians. They are nevertheless falsehoods concerning one’s time in the military. Many in the general public today look upon lying about military service and military decorations as a sacrilege.

Earlier this year Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah introduced a bill that would make lying about military service punishable with up to six  months in prison. A bill called the “Stolen Valor Act” signed in 2005 by President George W. “Gee Dubya” Bush broadened a law already on  the books making it illegal to wear an unearned Medal of Honor to displaying any military decorations which were not awarded. That law was struck down by a federal judge in Denver this summer, the jurist ruling that the law violated “free speech.”

Now it must be said that exaggerating or even downright lying about military exploits are considered a time-honored tradition in some parts. Who hasn’t had a few adult beverages too many and began to tell war tales of Hue, or maybe it was Subic Bay? Well, just as there are different shades and colors of lying so too do different manners of barroom bulls**tting exist. It is when someone takes those tall tales beyond the saloon and start to insert the lies into some manner of their life does the problem start to fester.

Politics and getting ahead are just a couple of  reasons why people make such lies about themselves. I think the phenomenon of military lying is lighted well in the book “Phony Marine,” a novel by writer and legendary “News Hour” journalist Jim Lehrer. The book is about an everyman who finds a Silver Star and makes himself up an entire new life as a Marine hero.

Probably most of us, scholars and just curious folks not included, never think past “Why would someone do something like that?” when serious military lying is unearthed. That is because of the complex relationship between the civilian and military world in the United States, even more is that the case when one has never served in the military.

But those of us who have served also have our different takes on those who commit the lie of military service or exaggeration. The one particularly troubling case is of those who build their service into something falsely stellar. Why? Many reasons exist, some pathological. But mostly there is this to add to the why: Why? Why lie about your military service? Unless you did something wrong while serving or something of which you are seriously shamed by, why not be proud you served? You did something honorable serving. Why not just be content what that?

Otherwise, you might just resort to doing something really stupid, like exercising  your “free speech” kind of like Mr. Paladino and other pols seem to be doing these days.

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Long early voting lines here in SE Texas

Never, ever did I think I would see a day when I had to stand in a substantial line to vote early here in Jefferson County, Texas.

That would be the case though as I stood in a line of about 30 people this afternoon, a nice Friday afternoon that was more than a full week before the end of early voting. The voting itself didn’t take long despite my weariness from standing about 20 minutes on my messed-up knee. It doesn’t take long to vote a straight ticket.

The early voting turnout is a little bit amazing to me. There are no local races that have people’s knickers in a knot. A couple of justice of the peace races, a couple of county offices. So the crowd is really about the governor’s race. I don’t know who else is on the ballot besides Democratic challenger Bill White and Gov. Doofus Goodhair Perry.

All I know is a fair number of folks are showing up in my neck o’ the woods. As of the end of voting Thursday some 12,300 voters had cast early voting ballots at the 10 polling places and by mail, according to figures on County Clerk Carolyn Guidry’s Web site.

The busiest polling place by far has been Rogers Park Recreation Center, where I voted, on Beaumont’s West End. Almost 3,260 people had voted there by the end of Thursday.

How this plays for my favored candidate, Bill “The Bald Democrat” White, I couldn’t guess. This is a traditionally Yellow Dog Democrat area. But a fair amount of folks have caught that dreaded “Tea Party Fever.” Just an educated guess from someone six hours short of a Poly Sci degree but I think White will do well here in the county just as Obama did well. A lot hinges on the African-American turnout. Beaumont is a majority Black city. It would be hard to guess how the young vote will end up especially at Lamar University, it being traditionally more of a commuter-urban educational institution.

Even though my knee is giving me hell right now I was glad to see the unusually large turnout. Some of them may be pissed off and not favoring my candidates, but at least they aren’t in the streets rioting and fomenting a coup as the disaffected living in some other countries sometimes are wont to do. That’s something.