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No buffalo for three weeks?

Every now and then I like to treat myself to a buffalo burger at a local Southeast Texas-Southwest Louisiana chain called Novrozsky’s. This is, I understand, not to be confused with the Houston Roznovsky’s hamburger chain. Well, maybe you wouldn’t get them mixed up. Mr. or Ms. Know It All!

To my dismay, Novrozsky’s was out of buffalo for their buffalo burger. I went ahead and bought a regular cheeseburger while telling the girl taking the order that the reason I came was for their buffalo burger. She mentioned that to the manager and the manager began telling me an interesting story about why they were out of buffalo, or bison, meat and would not have any for three or four weeks.

Bison raisers had begun liquidating herds what with the economy, according to the manager. But meanwhile the demand for the leaner, healthier buffalo meat began to grow like crazy. Thus the supply chain was falling behind and, even more interesting the manager said, it could be five years before the buffalo market would be back to normal. Five years?

That the manager took his time to explain all of this to me was impressive, hungry as I was. I also don’t doubt that what he told me was something he had been told by his suppliers or perhaps his corporate types. But I have been unable to find that herds had begun to be knocked off and even though supply is shorter than normal there doesn’t seem to be as much as a shortage as I interpreted there was, at least from the manager’s explanation.

No doubt, demand seems to be outstripping supply of bison meat. An executive of the North American Bison Cooperative told Adweek that the consumers have really seized upon — not literally — buffalo meat even though there is a record price differential between bison and beef.

I don’t know whether someone is blowing smoke about the herd liquidation or whether it is a fact. I tend to trust the manager’s story because he took time to tell me, something at least. That’s better that about 95 percent of what casual restaurants and fast food managers take time to do these days. I seriously do appreciate as well the manager telling  me why I can’t get another bison burger for three weeks.

Perhaps the restaurant can’t get the meat to meet their profit margin, or perhaps there is a hitch in the supply chain. There is no question that Americans have begun to discover the tasty and not-so-artery-blocking wonders of buffalo meat. Whatever the reason I can’t get it at the restaurant that makes my favorite buffalo burger, it’s like I said. I can’t get it. At least for three more weeks. That’s a bummer, dude.

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Tea anyone?

If you want an analysis about the elections today in the Northeast then get it here on the Washington Post’s site. Those folks might be a bit biased, but so what? You need to know what all sides are thinking if you are going to be informed about politics. And right now, cable TV just isn’t cutting it. Sure, you get both sides, but I am talking all sides because there are more than two sides to politics, especially this year.

You have your defined left and moderates in the Democratic Party, no matter that Limbaugh says all Democrats are far left radicals. You also have moderates in the GOP, although their own sometimes will call them RHINOs, Republicans in Name Only. Then, there is the Tea Party, which has, unfortunately, become known as the insane arm of the Republican Party. I say unfortunately because those Tea Partyiers who started off with fairly reasonable ideas now have become lost in the crowd of the real nut jobs. And in reality, the nuts are not really going anywhere except down in defeat this November. The GOP will be fortunate if the TPs don’t take them along for the ride.

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Our roads are getting fixed, but …

It seems as if everywhere I turned today that I was met with road construction.

Beaumont has long had street problems as well as drainage problems and sometimes the drainage problems have caused street problems. I have long advocated that our city fix our ragged-ass roads before they turn the town into the next wannabe San Antonio or New Orleans. I use those two cities as an example because our City Dads and Moms, as well as our forward-looking city manager, have envisioned our downtown as potential tourist traps Meccas centers.

So now it seems our streets are finally being fixed, the problem is they are all being repaired at the same time. This all happens when, or so it seems, work is perpetually under way on Interstate 10 between US 69/96/287 and the Neches River.

On my way downtown this morning I found the center and right lanes of I-10 closed before you get to the eastbound Downtown exit. While all seems finally clear on Calder Avenue between Main Steet and Martin Luther King, the rest of Calder all the way to I-10 is a crap shoot as far as finding the street unimpeded from construction. Only blocks South of there you have Fannin Street to the east of Gateway Shopping Center in a state of being torn up and put back together. A few blocks South of there you find College Street, another of the city’s major thoroughfares, undergoing repaving from 11th St to the East. I finally just said, screw it, and headed back onto 11th Street then made my way to Laurel (or is it Liberty? One goes one-way toward West Beaumont and the other goes one-way to Downtown.) At the moment, these two streets seem the most reliable way to traverse between Downtown and the city’s West End.

Oh, I tell you, I bitch about the roads because they are not helping my 12-year-old Toyota Tacoma age gracefully. I read a story today about a man who is suing the city because he said the potholes allegedly caused him to have a head-on collision. This report to which I link comes, by the way, from The Southeast Texas Record. It is one of the newspapers so thoughtfully established by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with hopes of fighting what they call lawsuit abuse in an area that has been called a “judicial hellhole” because of the sometimes friendly plaintiffs’ juries. But if this case is found to have merit I don’t think I would call it abuse but rather a public service.

If you want to go anywhere else in Beaumont these days, I suggest you have a full tank of gas and a butt-load of patience because, why? That’s right, you can’t get to there from here. So I guess we should just shut up, count our blessings and let our idling automobiles increase our ozone levels, as if those levels need help.

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Not just figures in boarding up the government

Last night I came across this blog post in Federal Times. I read Federal Times as well as other Gannett-owned “Army Times” papers including  Army Times and Navy Times. I posted it for a short while on my Facebook page but later decided it belonged here.

The post describes how GOP members want to force deep cuts in the health reform bill that Congress passed. They are talking of forcing the Democrats’ hands by shutting down the government. I made the snide remark about how mature such a move would be.

A friend responded to the article saying something to the effect of what about the $2 trillion the bill is costing? I then figured this would be the place to link the story. I don’t like arguing with my friends on Facebook. I just think shutting down the government means a lot more than an unimaginable figure like $2 bazilliontrillion. It means hardship on several million people and millions more of their family members.The last one ended up costing close to a billion dollars and that was 15 years ago.

I wish people could somehow divide their vision between “government the entity” and “government the people.” There are a lot of good people who work for the federal government, I know some of them. They don’t deserve to be punished because GOP politicians want to play grab-ass with the well being of our country.