Eight Feet Deep

“Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet,” Master Po asked Shaolin monk Caine  in the early 70s’ “Kung Fu?”

Who knows. But another man named Poe (silent “e”) apparently hears grasshoppers everywhere.

U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and to my sadness is  my congressional representatives, called illegal immigrants “grasshoppers” during a speech on the House floor. Illegal immigrants are a big thing with Master Poe. For one thing, it gets him on the Fox Republican Propaganda Network. It  used to mean appearances on CNN when big anti-illegal alien Lou Dobbs still had a TV show. He has often been shown on right-wing news shows at border stations such as in El Paso, about 800 miles from his congressional district.

Poe, congressman not the blind master played by Keye Luke, is a former state district judge who loved getting his name in the paper or his mug on TV for handing out outlandish sentences in criminal cases. Never get in between Ted Poe and a reporter or news camers. Poe is in love with the idea of himself on television or in the news. That is why I won’t spend much of my time on him.

Congressman (Judge) Poe thinks the man that catches illegal aliens here, near the Sabine-Neches rivers in the local ports should be in charge of Homeland Security. They, those federal officers in my area who keep people from getting themselves killed in holds of cargo ships, do a good job. They do what they are supposed to do. I’m sure they wouldn’t want a job continually kissing backsides of pompous politicians like Ted Poe.

Snatch the pebble Congressman Poe and it will be time to leave. On second thought. Why not leave now? Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

What happens when a tragedy transforms into a disaster? One may find that answer under the heading of “Deepwater Horizon.”

When the multi-million-dollar offshore oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico and sank two days later the incident was already a tragedy if not a disaster-in-the-making. However, no one could be positive about either possibility at the initial stages.

Now nearly two weeks later, the 11 workers who were missing and were a subject of a search over hundreds of miles of Gulf waters are feared dead. That was and is the tragedy and what makes this such a personal story for anyone who wants to personalize it — whether they want to or not.

The sinking of the rig and the inability to stop the flow of oil went from a terrible headache for BP and other principals and evolved into a disaster as the oil continues to ride the waves toward the delicate Louisiana wetlands and beyond. Perhaps booms or  whatever can be laid down on the strait at the Rigolets and at Chef Mentuer Pass to keep the crude out of Lake Pontchartrain. But bad weather including coastal flooding will likely have the oil threatening Mississippi Sound and the beaches of Alabama and even Florida.

It isn’t just the birds, many which may die from oily feathers, or the two-toed Biloxi turkle dove or any real or imagined endangered species that face harm while in the path of this crude mess that makes this a disaster of many dimensions. Think about the fishing — commercial and recreational — and the oyster beds and shrimp that might destroy an economy that was just trying to return after a series of hurricanes. What happens when disaster follows disaster follows disaster?

It isn’t just the concerns of the “environmental wackos,” as I heard Rush Limburgerbreath call them yesterday. This runaway oil is an economic train wreck hitting a tornado after being buried in an avalanche following an earthquake. Just that one rig. Just imagine the impact on the U.S. petroleum industry alone. Then there is the potential economic loss from the fishing industry and tourism. I thought about visiting Gulfport and Biloxi in a couple of weeks but decided instead to visit my friend who lives in El Paso, across the Rio Grande from the world’s murder capital, Juarez. Oh well, I guess I’m an adventure tourista. But my decision was made before the potential oil spill disaster that could strike a Katrina-rebounding Mississippi Gulf Coast.

But yes, this thing, this oil spill in the Gulf, has turned into a bigger “thing.” It is an environmental disaster that become a major freaking ecological disaster. So let the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and the ghost of John Wayne playing a Red Adair-like character in the 1968 adventure flick “Hellfighters” go in and get this “thing” under control. An economy depends on it.  So do the birds. So does the Earth. And if indeed the 11 missing are forever entombed into the deep, let them live where the seas once again show its beauty and the sailor’s wish of fair winds and following seas. It’s the least that can be done for those men.

All’s well that ends well, especially when one doesn’t end up in the slammer for contempt of court.

Who knows whether it was the ignorance of youth or the arrogance of bratdom that prompted 19-year-old Houston college student Kelsey Gloston to avoid federal jury duty. Avoid seems a bit too polite. It seems like Gloston was telling U.S. District Judge David Hittner and his staff where he could put his gavel and his robe.

Gloston could have probably shirked jury duty at one appearance she made at court before she told the clerks she had a flat and then later hung up on them. But no, that is not what she ended up doing, according to the linked story above.

Some may say Hittner was on a power trip. Maybe. But there are places where judges are hard pressed to fill up a jury box. If everyone did like Gloston …

I was living one of my most impoverished periods when I first got called up for a jury. I didn’t have money to put gas in my truck and I lived about 12 miles from the courthouse, out in the boonies. So here I was wearing this suit, hitching a ride to town. Didn’t have any trouble getting a ride whatsoever. I filled up on the donuts and enjoyed the coffee the jurors had those two mornings. They bought us lunch and dinner one day. Plus, we got paid for it!

But I would never try to avoid jury duty, I am kind of a civics geek, and a proud citizen of this country like that. Your ride here in this country isn’t totally free. The “patriots” say “freedom isn’t free.” Neither is running a society. But you get this country and donuts too? Shoot man, that’s not a bad deal at all!

There is so much wrong with the fact that our (Texas) Gov. Rick Perry shot a coyote while out on a jog in a supposed undeveloped part of Austin.

It’s not that he just shot a coyote. Just as Tela Mange said, people shoot coyotes and snakes all the time. Tela is the main spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety. The DPS, as they are called, includes the highway patrol, Texas Rangers (the police not the baseball team) and the governor’ security detail. I’ve called Tela a number of times when I worked as a reporter, just like many reporters in the state have. She is Aces for a cop flak. That is high praise, for those uninitiated.

Tela gave that response to reporters over whether a report had been filed that Perry discharged his gun. Nope. I’m sure he wasn’t required to. If his security squad had all unloaded on the little critter, I’m sure they would still be filling out paperwork through next year.

Therein lies what bothers me more than a little. Why did Rick Perry decide to play “Dirty Harry” and pull-out his .380 Ruger loaded with hollow-points and guided by laser sights? He supposedly was worried about his little dog. Isn’t it always about their “little dogs” with politicians? Look down through the years: FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Gee Dubya dropping Barney on the Texas State Technical College airport Tarmac.

If Goodhair was really worried about the coyote attacking the dog, after he shot it, for whatever reason, did anyone have the presence of mind to step back and look at the situation? Coyotes don’t go around attacking dogs that are in an entourage with  a bunch of folks running and kicking up dust, that is unless they are nuts or rabid or something. If anyone was really worried about the coyote did they ever think about taking the dead animal in to have it tested for rabies? No. That’s because Perry was likely in the frame of mind of that cartoon buzzards featured on T-shirts. The shirts say: “Patience My Ass. I Want to Kill Something.”

It does no good, here, to get into a moral tussle over whether varmints should be shot. Or whether deer should be shot. Or whether snakes should be shot. Or whether despicable war criminal-type murderers should be shot. Or whether you should eat beef or fish or eat an omelette while watching elephants perform with a cross-dressing trainer in a circus. These issues are all perpetual-motion machines. Right. Right. You’re bloody well right. Or you are wrong.

I never shot a coyote. I shot quite a few armadillos and a few squirrels when I was a kid. I don’t hunt and don’t kill animals anymore. It’s nothing particularly moral as it is aesthetics. If I was hungry, I might kill something. I’ve been hungry enough to do that. I once sat on the roof of my house with a .410 waiting for a squirrel or a bird big enough and not buzzardly enough to eat. Lucky the animals knew I was armed that day and stayed away. It’s just as well. It all worked out for me and for them.

In line with the fact that Perry’s story is rather flimsy is that I wonder where exactly did the coyote-killing take place? Was it in the Austin city limits? And I am not talking about the long-running PBS musical show on TV that features pickers and grinners playing before a false Austin background. Most cities have ordinances against “discharging firearms” within the city limits. If Perry and his security team were in an unincorporated area then the point is moot.

Finally, I don’t know much about using laser sights on handguns. I don’t think we’re talking here about a huge rifle-type scope mounted on top of Perry’s semi-auto. If Perry wanted to increase his ability to kill something, specifically someone, I am sure, from what little I have read in gun magazines and Web sites that laser sights might help. But there is just something a bit  unseemly about the governor of Texas — with its cowboy and frontier background — having to resort to laser-guided weapons to kill a little wild canine. Actually, I think most people I grew up with would call Perry a Candy Ass if he couldn’t use something as simple as a .22 rifle or pistol to shoot a critter such as a coyote.

I don’t mean to belittle my friends who use laser sights. But wouldn’t you want to be thought of as a better shot than someone who needs 21st century hardware to  kill something from many, many centuries before? Give me a break, Goodhair. Big old macho guy, surrounded by a mess of cops and needs a fancy pants techno weapon to kill a coyote that may or may not have been a threat in the first place. What the hell is wrong with you, Rick Perry? What you got on? Your mind?

Here in the midst of restocking my “new” refurbished, replacement computer I thought I might pause a few minutes for obliqueness.

The photograph that I share is one I took last week while on vacation. The scene is a sector of one of the most memorable spots in my lifetime. I won’t go into the whole story. The  reason is that the person who owned that spot died the other day of something or other, from what we used to call old age. But there isn’t such a thing anymore.

Why I read this story today about a woman who is 113 years old. She is supposedly the oldest person in the U.S. and the fourth oldest in the world. I’d guess that as the crow flies,this elder lives between 50-70 miles from where this photo was taken. That is as specific as I’d like to get. Also, that is provided the lady is still living by the time you read this. I don’t mean to be rude. I am just being realistic. Plus, I’ve written too many stories about people who are PDO (Pretty Danged Old) and nothing takes the wind out of your sails as a writer when the live subject about whom you discuss is already yesterday’s news and the obituary from the day before.

So now the fellow who owned this little peace of heaven has passed on — something my journalism professor would have cussed me for writing — and my eulogy is only that the man was somewhat of a SOB. Now it’s not nice to speak of the dead. But somehow, I doubt this SOB would have minded being remembered as a SOB. That is because he seemed rather proud of his bearing. So, technically, I am not speaking ill of the dead, even though I am saying the person who owned this pretty spot of land was a SOB.

I speak as well about how beautiful the land was that he owned and the land around it. So what I am saying about this SOB is not all bad, just that he was a SOB. Billy Joel sang in one of his songs about how “only the good die young.” But we all know that isn’t true. The SOB wasn’t particularly young when he died. And I don’t even know the 113-year-old woman talked about in the newspaper story. She might just be the most wonderful lady ever made. Or not, but let’s hope so.

Peace be with you Ms. 113-year-old lady. And you too you old SOB with the pretty piece of property that is one of the most memorable spots in my life. There is beauty in life, spots and all. No matter if you are a nice old lady, a witch, a saint of a man, or a SOB with the coolest piece of land one could imagine.