Eight Feet Deep

This is going to be short and sweet. Well, maybe not sweet. Perhaps not short either. (Ha! I write after finishing this book!)  My blog writing is like a Hickory Farms gift basket. You never know what you’re going to get. Especially if you get a canned ham that stays too long. I think I wrote about that the other day. Worse case of food pizening — yes I know that is incorrectly spelled — that I ever had.

Although I released one candidate endorsement already this year, I am going to give the rest. Here it is:

Vote the straight Democratic ticket.

Yee hah!  That didn’t take long.

Rick Perry has done nothing other than take Texas backwards. I think Goodhair makes former Gov. Bill Clements look like a statesman. And I am not talking the Austin American-Statesman.

When Perry first came out with his Trans Texas Corridor plan, all packaged neatly with drawings of how transportation corridors, highway, rail, pipelines, high-speed digital transverse dilithium crystal pods and a mechanical rabbit for greyhound racing could all fit in one big boputa — I don’t even know if there is such a word but there should be — the TTC kind of made Rick look visionary. It turned out to be visionary in the way Dock Ellis might have seen his catcher and umpires the time he pitched that no-hitter while tripping on acid. Go ask Alice, when she’s 10 feet tall …

The Trans Texas Corridor turned out to be a bad trip for Slick Rick. Wanting a company from Spain to run the whole kitten kaboodle — yes I know I mis-smelled that — wasn’t the best idea. But the worst idea is taking away land from people who could give a kitten kaboodle’s butt for the 7:19 to Bellmead and the 7:21 to Lacy-Lakeview. Great places. Check out the bar on Old/New Dallas Highway in Bellmead that advertises “Fat Girls.” If it’s still there. This is in greater Waco that I am talking about.

Public domain. It gets your baseball and football stadiums built, by Golly. But it’s not a pretty thought to have a couple hundred acres of improved pasture land taken away so pipelines, high lines and a toll booth operated by King Juan Carlos’ grandkids can sit outside your living room.

Okay, so Trans Texas Corridor is a dead duck and all of that is irrelevant as for Gov. Rick and his challenger, former Houston Mayor Bill White, the Democrat. Well, not really. The toll road idea which was a big part of  TTC seems to have caught on, for sure. And there are still thousands of rural acres that could be swallowed up by some idea, real or an acid trip. Now don’t get me wrong. Texas needs to do something about  its overcrowded roads. What roads you say? I say I-35 from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Antonio. And Interstate 10, in my neighborhood. Once the I-10 is widened to three lanes in Orange County to the Louisiana border, it will be 3 lanes all the way to Houston. Then, it will be obsolete. Trucks will be relegated to the outer two lanes. Then those lanes will be torn up from the strain and require constant fixing. Who really knows  what kind of an LSD journey — not that I am saying Perry does acid, he probably could see more clearly now the rain is gone if he did take LSD — the governor will take in another term. Oh, and do you remember him saying Texas could drop out of the 50 United States?

Locally, I don’t know what is wrong with our Democratic party leaders in that they can’t get someone to challenge Judge Ted Poe as our congressman. A Libertarian is running against him. I think I’ve mentioned him, David Smith, before. While he has a few ideas, he is a Tea Party guy and I can’t imagine anyone more conservative than Ted Poe. At least Poe spends his time on the Mexican border or on Fox TV on the Mexican border than trying to woo voters. Poe is really into the immigration controversy. Not so much into regular constituent issues like what the local VA hospitals and clinic do or do not provide.

So, vote straight, Democratic ticket, I implore you!

But I will mention a couple of endorsements, all Democrats, the first one was my first endorsement of this 2010 election. But he is worth a second mention:

Kenneth Franks. Democratic candidate for District 9 State Representative. Shelby, San Augustine, Sabine, Jasper, and Nacogdoches Counties.

Pineland, Texas, is a tiny place. Nonetheless, the only sensible choice for the Texas House District 9 lives near there. I don’t personally know Kenneth Franks. But we have common friends. Don’t hold that against  him. His opponent has done little to distinguish himself except for helping out his beach house neighbors on Bolivar Peninsula, many miles from his district. Ken has an impressive grasp on an assortment of issues. If you will check out his Website you can read them for yourself. What I think separates Ken from his opponent is Franks’ knowledge and his experience in education. Texas is in a mess when it comes to public education and we need people with an amazing  background in classroom education such as Ken Franks to help sort out that mess. From what I have gathered exchanging e-mails and such, it also seems like Ken has the common sense that is sorely needed in our Texas Legislature.

You know, the Legislative Reference Library of Texas notes that a state legislator has not gone to Austin from Sabine County since Fitzhugh L. Beauchamp of Bronson served in the 52nd Legislature from 1951-53.  A lot of talent exists in the Pineywoods of East Texas. Perhaps that is where folks who live in District 9 of the Texas House of Representatives should look for their next state rep.

State Rep. Jim Dunnam,  Incumbent Democrat, District 57, McLennan, Falls, Robertson, Leon, Madison counties.

Waco attorney Jimmy Dunnam has been a state representative since 1996. He currently serves as the House Democratic Leader. I am sure he doesn’t know this blog from Adam but I saw this guy in his element — on the street and on the House floor — and he is good. Oh he’d probably remember me if I told him my name, but why spoil the fun. Seriously, our state needs Jim Dunnam. Elect him. Again. You’ll feel good doing it.

John Mabry, Democratic candidate, District 56, McLennan County.

Mabry, another Waco attorney, served from 2003-05 in the Texas House. No matter that he is partner in Dunnam and Dunnam, sound familiar? Hey, Waco isn’t exactly New York City. John served with distinction in the House, whatever that means. Seriously,  Mabry did an outstanding job as a Freshman house member, which really means he actually got off his butt and got out into the mix. If anyone could help ensure Waco continues to have a little political prestige in the Texas Lege then they need to elect Dunnam and Mabry. The partners from Dunnam and Dunnam. Yeah, I know it sounds incestuous, but hey it’s politics and fair is fair is …

Reggie Cotton, Democratic incumbent, Precinct 2, County Commissioner, Nacogdoches County.

Reggie doesn’t know I have a blog and would probably deny knowing me. No, he wouldn’t. He is a good guy and even has all, or at least most, of his gray matter as far as I know. Odd for a Texas county commissioner. If he is still the Reggie Cotton I have known for the better part of a couple of decades then believe me, you need him for another term as commissioner. Oh, the kiss of death!

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, Incumbent Democrat, U.S. House, Bosque, Brazos, Burleson, Grimes, Hill, Hood, Johnson, Limestone, Madison, McLennan, Robertson, Somervell, counties.

I know it is kind of odd to put a member of Congress at the bottom of a list of endorsements, even below a county commissioner. So what? I tell you what. My little endorsement don’t mean a thing and it ain’t got that swing. Especially after reading The Dallas Morning News endorsed Chet. Yeah, I call him Chet, the guy that Nancy Pelosi thought would make a good running mate for Obama. Never mind the politics that goes on these days. Chet has come out Mr. Conservative. He has to do so. And it’s not an act. He is a conservative, or moderate. Most of my friends are conservatives. Not so many are conservative Democrats. Most aren’t even too much moderate. Although, even I get conservative about things.

Edwards has two very important committee assignments, Budget and Appropriations. On the latter,  he chairs the military construction and veterans affairs and serves as second ranking member on the Energy and Water subcommittee. All some pretty heady stuff.

Chet represents an area that was the home to President George Walker Bush. Yeah, he was Gee Dubya’s congressman. It is a pretty GOPped district. His committee assignments and his tenure attest to why Congressman Edwards needs to return to office. That is, unless, you want to see “U.S. Sen. Chet Edwards” sometime in the future. It’s not all that bad an idea. Just not right now.

Had you been rushing up and down Martin Luther King Parkway here in Beaumont town this afternoon you may have found yourself busted by one of three or so motorcycle cops. MLK is always a pretty good place to get caught by the motorcycle patrol although they can show up just about anywhere. Today was a bit different although not unique.

Three of the police department’s motorcycle patrolmen were lined up next to each other ready to roll while just down the road a short distance was an unmanned BPD License and Weight cruiser with its emergency lights flashing to beat the band, or the speeders, I should say.

This is one of the traps the department uses every now and then. You might call it a “Move it on over” trap although Ol’ Hank Sr. probably wouldn’t have cared for it any more than many of us. Of course, were he caught Ol’ Hank might have been passed out from drinking Jesus in a Jar so he might not give a dog’s bark.

Now I am not big on police entrapment of any kind. I liken the entire field to what we used to refer to as “calling up fish.” You’d have an old crank-type tellyphone along with you in the boat. You (not you, the rhetorical “you”) would stick the bare wires in the water and use Mr. Bell’s version of “crank bait” to electrocute fish. Speed traps of any kind, likewise, do not curry nationwide favor. That is why there are so many places on the Internet one might look to discover the location of a possible speed trap.

I am not saying  that “speed limit enforcement”  is necessarily a bad thing. It is what LEOs do. They may even catch someone who needs to be caught.

Other stings I don’t have great feelings for at all. Prostitution or “John” stings is one example. It gets people off the street for a short period of time. That’s about it. Such arrests make the police look like the “moral outrage coppers.” Bad stuff.

I don’t have anything against the local motorcycle cops. They do probably a  more efficient job in traffic enforcement than anyone else in the department. But the “Move it on over sting,” I feel, pretty much sucks. I could’ve said it was reprehensible but let’s just call an “is” what it is. The law is to get drivers to slow down for any emergency vehicle that is pulled over, not just police cars. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I have been at wreck scenes or fires, on the side of busy road, and I know the danger present. The Texas Department of Public Safety defines the law as such:

“The move-over or slow-down law requires drivers nearing stopped emergency vehicles with emergency lights activated to either slow down or change lanes. Specifically, the law states a driver must either slow down 20 miles per hour below the speed limit or vacate the lane closest to the stopped emergency vehicle that has emergency lights activated if the road has multiple lanes traveling in the same direction. (If the speed limit is below 25 mph, the driver must slow down to 5 mph.) Drivers should only move over if they can safely and legally do so; otherwise, they should slow down.”

I find that law completely reasonable. But, it is difficult to enforce unless there is more than one police officer there because, say there is one patrol car which has pulled over one other motorist as is often the case, it is difficult for that one officer to finish up what he or she is doing and go after the speeder, or to even to determine to the law’s satisfaction that the person whizzing by was even in violation.

So how does the local PD enforce the law? They set up a trap. A mechanical deer (if they were game wardens, the local cops know better than putting a mechanical deer on the side of the highway in Southeast Texas  even in the daylight. No telling how many folks in their pickups would stop and throw a 30-ought-6 round or two in that decoy!) Back to the real trap, they have the car down range with its “overheads” on and another unit or two with radar and camera, and the Beaumont version of “CHiPs.”

The Texas DPS says that since the “Move Over or Slow Down” law took effect seven years ago, more than 14,000 tickets have been issued by that agency. Is that a large number of citations? The DPS news release doesn’t say. The latest Texas Department of Transportation statistics indicate the state has 20,864,318 registered vehicles. How many stopped emergency vehicles are involved in accidents? Nine occurred in 2009. That’s not a lot but that’s too many.

There are probably ways in which the law could be written and technology applied in which a stopped police car could catch on video another car speeding near it, much like the way red light cameras work. Those haven’t found a lot of fans, so far, either. So is the answer stings like today on MLK? Well, I don’t think so but I don’t run things. What’s more, I don’t have a motorcycle with little blue and red lights on it either. So it looks like I just spent an hour or so exercising my typing fingers, doesn’t it? Well, yes, it certainly does.

“Remember pup, before you whine

That side’s yours and this side’s mine

So shove it on over (move it on over)

Sweep it on over (move it on over)

Move over cold dog ’cause a hot dog’s moving in.” — Hank Williams “Move It On Over.”

Famous reporter Bob Woodward comes up with some of the best scoops in America. But, speaking as a former newspaper journalist, I think even the thickest mind knows that every once in awhile the best reporters get fed a red herring or three.

The story coming from Woodward, the longtime Washington Post reporter who co-broke Watergate and in recent years has been hanging around with presidents ranging from Shrub Bush to Rama Lama Obama, that the current prez might dump Joe Biden for Hillary in 2012 smells a lot fishy. You hear it almost every mid-term that a president plans to dump his No. 2, mostly when either A) A president has a stinker for a VP, or B) A presidency is in the crapper. And yes, there can be a C) when both A & B exists except that is a bit more difficult to quantify in polls than when it is the president or it is the Veep a la carte.

Think about it though. At least back to Reagan we heard the purported Mid-term Vee Pee Shuffle. George Herby Bush should go. Danny Boy Quayle. He really should have gone. I’m sure someone talked about Slick Willie getting rid of Al Gore before his reelection, but it was drowned out by all the noise from the Republicans who were trying to run Bill out of town on the Monica Express. Then finally, of course, there was talk of Gee Dubya Bush dumping Darth Vader except the problem was, Ol’ Darth Cheney “his ownself was the one what was running things.”

So it is common to hear such talk and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear the buzz about “Obamillary” was coming from the high-powered Dems, maybe even from those in the White House themselves. Why? Because of all of Biden’s gaffes? Hell, Joe Biden sounds like Winston Churchill when you remember all the nonsense one George Walker Bush spouted and George the First wasn’t much better.

For a variety of reasons — many sprouting from Republican propaganda — the Democratic party and specifically the Obama administration has been looked upon from a very negative viewpoint considering the popularity the president had coming in and still enjoys personally. Talk of a different Veep, most especially Hillary (only one name needed), changes the subject. There were those who were so upset that Hillary was not the nominee for No. 1 that they just said: “F**k it!” Giving those people the hope that Clinton just might be VP — and  you know those Clintons are ruthless enough to do just about anything once they are in office — might bring some to the ballot box in November. Those coming back to vote won’t be doing no Tea, baby! (Yeah, I know it’s a double by God negative.)

I see a Obama-Clinton ticket in 2012 as a snowball rolling down an express lane in Hell. Such a pairing would also bring out a different base, “the really, really pissed off base.” Those are the folks who hate the Clintons more than Obama but who also hate Obama.  Now that is all talk that  is, unless, Obama and his Mama and his Mama’s Momma are really off base. You may hate Obama and hate the Dems and the horse they rode in on. But I don’t think you can say Obama, Ms. Michelle, Mrs. Robinson and Obama’s political operation and Internet list of donors are all off base. But a warning dear friends: If you do think they are off base,  then you are really, really going to hate yourself when you wake up the Wednesday after election in 2012.

Editer’s noat: Yes I know that is not spelled correctly. Neither was some of the below post, nor was it written worth a rat’s ass yesterday. I did a rough draft after coming home with a swollen and hurting knee. I decided to rest after that draft and eventually blew off finishing the piece until today. Although I write this blog as a way to instill a little writing discipline in my life I, unlike many other unlucky schlubs, do not have to worry about a deadline so that if I am in pain and feel like crap I can just put off completion until I feel better. Unfortunately, when I finished yesterday, I hit the little button that says “Publish” instead of the correct one for my situation at the time that said “Draft.” Ooops. So, you probably had difficulty trying to read this. I know I did. I have gone back and completed a second draft. I trust it is better than the first although it might not be better than what a third draft might do. However, I have to visit a doctor in a few minutes to see about my still swollen and still painful knee. This thing, this post, still isn’t over but it will be eventually. If  you want to see how it eventually comes out, come back and read it again in a few days, read it now or just say “$^*&@^%#!” Okay? Aloha.

Call it eerie or just plain weird, but how many times do you pick up a book to read that starts in the very same place you are in or have been in within the last week?  Well, maybe if you are in New York, N.Y., the capital of the World maybe it isn’t so strange. But inside the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, where you sat a couple of hours last week to be empaneled for a jury that never happened? And to top it all off, the book is a story of Japanese American soldiers who rescued a so-called “lost battalion” during World War II fighting in Europe. That’s pretty odd, at least to me.

Writer Robert Asahina’s “Just Americans,” subtitled “How Japanese Americans won a War at Home and Abroad,” travels backwards from 2004 from a contentious meeting in the Jefferson County Commissioners Court to Dec. 7, 1941 and  back again. The, my, local courthouse was the scene just a year before I moved back “home” of a drama that puzzled many, including me, and angered others. The meeting was over changing the name of a local rural road.

Now I covered more than my share of commissioners court meetings during my years as a Texas reporter. I say more than my share because too many times those meetings seemed to be more a sanctuary of ignorance rather than a hall of local governance. Although I didn’t really always mean it, I used to joke that the main qualification for being a Texas county commissioner was having had a lobotomy. Although as one county commissioner I knew, who also had a local country-western band, might say: “I’d rather have a bottle in front of  me than a frontal lobotomy.” Still, when it came right down to it, seemingly, it was just to difficult to tell whether it was a lobotomy, a bottle or both.

Getting back on the stick though, changing county road names hardly gets many people out on a Monday morning or Tuesday afternoon. However, the meeting in 2004 in Beaumont did draw a crowd thanks to some folks who locals considered as “outsiders” and who wanted to change a local road name from “Jap Road” to just about anything else. As Asahina points out, to those offended by the name it could just as well have been “Nigger Lane,” or “Spic Alley,” or “Kike Street.” The person who sparked changing the name was not really an outsider. She was just a Japanese American lady who had grown up in Jefferson County, where her paternal grandparents had arrived in 1921. Most Japanese who came to this part of Texas in those days did so because of rice farming. “Jap Road,” they had one in Jefferson and next door in Orange County, was named to honor the families who settled there. Nevertheless, Sandra Tanamachi, the Beaumont native who eventually got civil rights groups to help her change the local “Jap Lanes,” felt the name was less than an honor.

“Just Americans” is an often-times riveting battle tale of how a bunch of plucky Americans of all backgrounds including Asian and Anglo fought to rescue members of the 36th “Texas” Infantry Division who were trapped by Germans due to an ill-advised decision which was made by U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John Dalquist. By that time, for all you Texans unfamiliar with the story, the division had little to do with Texas except in name only. It was and is once again the Texas National Guard division, its members  have served many deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Where “Just Americans” exceeds in its own mission — relating a war tale that more than justifies the right for Japanese Americans to call themselves “Americans — is in its explanation of the American social history of the Nisei, the American-born children of the Japanese. It would be ridiculous for such a book to tread lightly around the imprisonment of more than 100,000 Japanese Americans set in motion by an ignorant Executive Order 9066 signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Ignorant is the choice word here because the “relocation” of the American Japanese was based on blatant racism which is especially ignorant when set in motion by someone as supposedly enlightened as FDR. Thankfully, the book doesn’t tread lightly. Instead Asahina tells of heartbreaking visits by Japanese American soldiers who would visit their families in these “relocation camps” only to quickly leave because the young soldiers found themselves going “home” to a place where no home existed.

Interesting as well was just how schizophrenic the U.S. relocation policy was. All was not equal when it came to Japanese if you lived on the West U.S. Coast as opposed to those Japanese Americans who lived on the U.S. territory of Hawaii. The young, seemingly laid-back Hawaiians were not nearly as burdened as were their mainland kin, according to Asahina. Nonetheless, the young Japanese Americans often found strife among each other in the barracks between the “Buddaheads” of Hawaii and the mainlanders who were called “Kotonks.” Asahina explained that the Buddaheads were so named for a play on a Japanese word meaning “pig.” The “Kotonk” was the word for a sound of both a coconut and a mainlander’s head splitting open.

Japanese Americans were certainly not the only minority group to be given much less than was deserved for their military service in World War II. There isn’t a lot I am passionate about when it comes to Waco, Texas, a place I lived for seven years, but I do strongly believe that its first and perhaps the first U.S. World War II hero, black Navy cook Dorie Miller from Waco deserves a Medal of Honor. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Pearl Harbor,” you might remember Miller as the Cuba Gooding character. Miller, in real life, pulled his wounded captain to safety and shot down Japanese planes when the battleship West Virginia was hit on Dec. 7, 1941. There is some uncertainty about what exactly happened, but Miller was brave enough to have been awarded the Navy Cross. Had he not have been black, which is these days pretty much the verdict except by the Navy and some in Congress, Miller would have received the MOH.

The same is the case for a number of Japanese Americans involved in the rescue of the “lost battalion.” Although you can “blame” politics, Bill Clinton did right some wrongs when he upgraded a number of medals held by the Japanese Americans who rescued the “Texas” battalion to the highest honor. Among those who were awarded the Medal of Honor was Lt. Daniel Inouye, who later lost his arm after fighting in Italy. Inouye became the first U.S. House member from Hawaii after it became the 50th state. He was later elected to the Senate and remains the longest serving senator now since the death of Sen. Robert Byrd recently.

While Sandra Tanamachi would probably have wished the road she fought to change the name from Jap Road had become something else it is “Japanese Road” in some places while “Boondocks Road” in others. The latter is a restaurant which had advertised in a radio jingle that exclaimed the eatery was “Waaaaay down on Jap Road.” The jingle had kind of set Tanamachi off and also set her on the quest to rid the road of the name she found offensive.

So the question gets asked, and has in the past was asked by me, why is “Jap” so offense a word to Japanese Americans? I put that question to my blog’s “Vice President of Technical Stuff,” Mr. Tokyo Paul, a friend from college journalism classes who now lives in Tokyo. Paul really didn’t have much of a clue, saying the word “Jap” was something more offensive to Japanese Americans than to the Japanese. The answer as to where the offense lies was in the use of the word “Jap” both before and after the war. Inouye remembers being called “a dirty Jap” by Americans after his homeland of Hawaii was bombed. As Asahina explained, many Anglo West Coast residents also would let the returning Japanese Americans know that they were now and forever considered dirty Japs. One could find “No Japs Allowed” on signs in local cafes in Oregon and California or see a sign in a barber shop reading: “We Don’t Cut Jap Hair.”

I get the hurt. I can’t begrudge a Japanese American who went through those times his or her pain or what the words must mean to them. I still think that word hurting that much shows a sensitivity that probably the Nisei would have been best advised to just let slip on by. What about “Dirty White Boy” that the 70s rock group Foreigner sang? If anything, Asahina shows in his book that the Nisei proves just the opposite when it comes to the old saw “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

Good God Granny, the things these brave soldiers of the 100th Battalion and 442nd Combat Regiment went through be they Japanese American, Korean American, Philippine American or Georgia Cracker American, broke their bones, their hearts and more. But some let that “dirty Jap” mouthed from some little insignificant son of a bitch hurt them. That’s too bad. But I guess we really didn’t really need Jap Road in the first place.

Never did I think I’d say this but come the first of next month I will be retired. Yes sir. Me retired. That would be funny if you knew me or perhaps not, as it might sound as if I am having some kind of mental slip and fall.

Certainly I won’t be moving to an exotic land or taking cruises like my older, retired brothers do quite often. No, I will still be working, barely making ends meet most likely unless some kind of miracle happens between now and the time my first check is electronically deposited. My monthly pension, while it’s about half of what I’d make at 65 instead of 55, is even less but might be enough for a ball game and a night on the town in Houston every now and then. Or it might pay my phone and Internet bill. Like any schmoe with good intentions, I am thinking about putting into savings most of my monthly check from the big media company I will officially be retired from. I say officially retired from even though I haven’t worked for the company in five years. I say big media company, it’s not such a big media company anymore, at least not a big newspaper medium company. It’s still a big media company. Both newspapers I worked for which were owned by the big media company are no longer owned by the big media company.

Such are the fortunes of big media, newspapers and the economy these days. These signs with Gee Dubya’s picture saying: “Do You Miss Me Yet?” sure don’t make me wistful. But you already know that if you know me.

In reality, I never really thought that much about whether I’d ever retire. I kind of figured I never will and in reality, I likely never will unless it is medical retirement. That certainly isn’t out of the question. Even though others whom I know also figured I’d never stay with a job long enough retire will likely scoff at what I am saying. I’ll be drawing a small pension after working 10-plus years for a company. Big deal! But it’s just one of those things you get to say you have done. I retired. I joined the AARP a couple of times after I turned 50, but you don’t have to be a retired person to join. If I join again, which I probably will, I can honestly say “I am retired.”

If I want to avoid my complicated employment situation: a full-time job I don’t always work at full time, a part-time job that often feels and sometimes is full-time what with added union responsibilities, I can just say: “I’m retired” when someone asks me what it is I do.

I’m retired. It  has a nice ring to it.