Eight Feet Deep

Anytime you receive unexpected money it has to be good. Even if it’s bad or if it turns out bad, when you look and see that check or cold, hard cash, it’s a good thing in my book.

I just got two very clean, very crisp $1 bills in the mail that look at the very least like the I-notes haven’t yet been used to snort cocaine. My serendipity comes courtesy of The Nielsen Company. Yes, the very ones that rate television programs.

The ratings company sent me a short questionnaire about television-related topics and I answered it and used my spit to seal it in their postage paid envelope. They even paid for the freaking postage after giving me $2 for about three minutes work, what guys!

I don’t know if they will send me more questions or if I will become an official member of the “Nielsen Family.” I hope so because, as people who read this blog either occasionally or regularly know, I will sure as shootin’ give my opinion. Especially for cash money. Especially for serendipitous cash.

Whether one likes or dislikes the outcome of the U.S. House vote last night approving the Senate’s health care reform package one might think some agreement could be found in that it was a historic moment.

Or so it would seem.

You don’t have to have spent 20 years in the newspaper business as I did to know there are some vast differences between electronic and actual newspaper consumption as to how news stories are conveyed to the reader. Headlines are what I am thinking.

Sure news via the Internet has headlines or whatever they’re called this week. But there is a world of difference — at least in my opinionated opinion (laugh track) — in the affect (yes, with an “a”) of the “72-point hed” of a newspaper and whatever size of a computer-generated headline. Those big, black, bold letters, be it on broadsheet or tabloid, just jump up, grab you and often times slap you silly. Then there is the judgment, or not, behind the big head.

A case in point is my local daily newspaper, the Beaumont Enterprise. The Hearst-owned publication is conservative in its editorial page side but usually doesn’t appear to cross the line too far on the news side with that stance. Their Web site is a whole different story and I just don’t have time to rant about it although the relatively new front-page makeover brings the dot-com element about a standard column and a half all down the paper’s right-hand side. Today it displays one of their idiotic Web polls which any thinking person — but if you read the reader comments on stories on their Web effort you will see thinking is in short supply — should realize means absolutely nothing.

Newspapers are a band wagon sort of enterprise, pardon the pun. One fad is a one-story front, or two, or three, big photos and so-forth. Today’s Beaumont paper has a main story and a sider as well as a third story on the bottom. Now one might guess that since the health reform passage was historic that it would be the main story perhaps with a sider of local reaction, doctors, political leaders and the like? No, it was a story titled: “Climb too steep” in an eye-grabbing but not “Second Coming” sort of point. The story was how the local Lamar University women’s basketball team, which was seeded 14 in the NCAA Regional Tournament in Austin, was defeated by the No. 3 seed West Virginia 58-43.

Now I watched that game while clicking back and forth to CNN to check on the status of the legislation as well as having had to surrender both altogether for the season opening episode on AMC of “Breaking Bad.” It was fantastic as I expected.

I suppose I can’t blame my local newspaper too much for its leading with the local team playing in the regional, losing, although I think something is a little out of whack whenever a huge sports story leads PI and is virtually absent in the sports section, cleverly named “@ Play.” My thought was: “Well, maybe I was wrong and the passage of a landmark health care bill wasn’t that big of a deal after all.”

So I checked out some of the papers showcased in the Newseum’s “Today’s Front Pages” section. I checked a few papers out at random and also looked at several which had local teams in the NCAA March Madness.

Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, the Post and Courier in Charleston, The Des Moines Register, The Dallas Morning News, several of these fairly conservative publications, all led with and had noticeable headlines on the legislation. The Spokesman-Review in Spokane had a large banner head: “Health Care Bill Passes.” It had a men’s and women’s teams from Gonzaga playing in the NCAA. Now only the women are left. They did have a large photo of the men’s team, which lost, with the headline inside the photo: “Bullied in Buffalo,” relating to where their defeat was suffered.

In Green Bay, Wisc., which one would think is a huge sports town despite its population being about 100,000 and about the size of Beaumont, the Green Bay Press-Gazette ran with the large banner “Health care reform passes” and a sub-hed “Republicans unanimously oppose $940 billion bill.” The Wisconsin-Green Bay women’s team beat Virginia last night and advances. It has a “reefer” or referred to the story at the top of the page for the sports section. The other front-page stories were about local census issues and on a statewide hate crimes report.

And what about the area paper of the team that beat Lamar? Well, The Herald-Dispatch in Huntington, W.Va., had a colorful banner with a reefer to the inside on all the region’s teams still surviving including West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio State. Its large photo is of Food Network star Jamie Oliver topping a story about his show featuring Huntington. A large head and text fills the right-hand side of the paper with the story about the health care bill. Oh well. That’s kind of half and half.

You can check out the headlines yourself and you will find some that ignored the historic bill as the huge story that it was but I think many of the editors across the nation realized the event’s enormity.

I will not try to second-guess my local newspaper. I learned long ago that if you ever tried to bet on how a paper would play a story you would be a big-time loser. I suppose one other of the newspaper’s attributes that is lost on the world of electronic news is the historic sense of the publication. Have you ever saved a newspaper after a historic event? Maybe it’s just me but I have stored somewhere front pages when Reagan was shot, the Challenger explosion, my lead story in the paper where I was working at the time of the Columbia explosion, the beginning of the Iraq War, 9/11 and more. I think I have saved most, at least sections, of the newspaper of just about every major and some minor stories I wrote.

The electronic news platform has yet to find a way that will grip its reader with the sense of the moment and the importance of that moment the way the newspaper does and has through its existence. I am not particularly happy with my local paper’s choice of story play, but that’s what makes this a great country. That and we have had this extremely contentious issue of health care and haven’t had a civil war. That is, not yet.

During however long this fight over health care reform has been going on, I have largely been quiet about the subject. Now that it seems to be headed for make or break I will say this: Yipppiiiieeee!!!

I have become so sick of the left and the right and the in between and the media obsessing over this issue that I just want everyone to shut the f**k up!

People have been getting themselves so worked up in a frenzy with their knickers all in a knot that they don’t realize just to what extent they are being manipulated — by all sides. The left, the right, the insurance companies, the medical industry, the media have all gotten people so stirred up that they don’t know what they are fighting for or against anymore.

We have a right and we should be passionate about something that so affects our lives. But we have to stop and ask ourselves just what it will do to our lives if provisions a, b or c of this legislation are passed or what happens if it isn’t enacted. So much of the rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. It’s BS that is aimed more at destroying each other’s political parties or stuffing the pockets of the lobbies whichever side is courting or already receiving their generosity.

I go back to that scene last year where the woman was at a congressional town hall meeting said: “I just want my country back.”

I have to ask: Where did your country go lady? Do you really mean what you are saying or is that just some words provided for you to use because you don’t really know what is going on but you know you aren’t for the Democratic side because of Obama, plus somebody told you you should be out raising hell and you had it reinforced by Fox News. The Democrats are just as guilty. I got an e-mail from Obama’s organization today saying I should call my congressman to tell him I support this reform and they even gave me a suggested script.

It’s  not going to happen though. The main reason is because my congressman is Ted Poe, who I consider to be on the far right fringe of the Republican Party. I am not going to waste my breath or a phone call to his office.

Look, I support the reform. I approve much or most of what has been proposed. Some of the proposals stink. I just don’t think that the world is going to end with whatever outcome happens. I don’t think we will become some new incarnation of the Soviet Union with its passage nor will we all be overcome with a virulent incurable disease if it doesn’t pass.

That isn’t to say that our health care situation won’t become worse without the passage of reform. I hardly think it will get better by itself.

I think Obama and the Democrats are right for taking on this issue and fighting for its success. There are scores of issues that need to be acted upon, but like putting off that project at work or procrastinating on that school paper, those things don’t get the attention they need until the last minute or it is too late. For an example I would look at our current financial mess.

There is so much that needs to be done in this country and I am talking big things! Among those are infrastructure, making sure water remains available in the future, I could go on and on.  So I am hoping this passes and people will just be quiet about it for a while. I also know that is the last thing that is going to happen.

A personal disaster was narrowly averted today as I stood in a long, slow line waiting to order a buffalo burger at Novrozky’s here in Beaumont. That’s not to be confused with Roznovsky’s, also a hamburger joint, some 90 miles west in Houston.

Now since I’ve mentioned two restaurants it might look as if I am about to do a review or something. I will get to my short review of the former after the averted disaster.

Several women came in with three or four little golden-haired girls and joined the already long lunch line. I must have waited 10 minutes since the restaurant, at its busiest time of the lunch crowd, had only an average of 1.5 women taking orders. It is easy to imagine that having to stand in a long line, that a bunch of little children are bound to become restless and bored. That is what apparently was going on with this one little girl behind me as I stood somewhat sideways watching a NCAA March Madness games on one of the restaurant’s TV screens.

Blondie was, of course, cute as a speckled pup with a pink ribbon tied around its neck. Or a little pit bull pup with a spiked, leather collar around its neck, if you happen to be of the gangsta variety. The little girl was about waist-high to me which meant that if she was to start doing windmill-type motions with her arms and hands she could very well hit some guy where it might have just hurt like the dickens. I wasn’t hit there but I was accidentally struck once at a location too close for comfort. Thankfully the errant slap from little windmill girl didn’t hit me there because that would have been embarrassing as hell and someone would have probably pulled out a cell phone and took a video of me being bent over in agony where it would have ended up on You Tube.

Now you are probably asking why I am telling you this? I would imagine most men would not like to talk about being racked by a 10-year-old girl in a public place. You already know my feelings. But I say this to issue a warning to some of you parents of younger children out there.

I know a parent can’t prepare for every inevitability. However, had the mother or person who was supervising this child seen what happened — and  I am not sure that she did not — she might have issued an apology or asked her child to apologize. Obviously, I could not say anything lest I be ostracized at the very least, or perhaps even accused of something unseemly. And it wasn’t even my fault!

As it was, the group of parents didn’t even notice in the five or so seconds in which it occurred that I picked up the kid by her hands and swung her around like a Tilt-o-Whirl. Boy, did she stagger around for awhile afterward. The parents just went on talking and didn’t even notice. Only kidding!

On to the food. It was about an hour before my food was ready. That’s kind of slow even for Novrozsky’s. I guess they keep low overhead by putting all the personnel back in the kitchen instead of out front. Seriously, they could have used one more person to handle the crowd. I saw one party of six-to-eight leave because of the long line. Of course, my back and feet hurting didn’t help.

After finally getting the food it was good, as it usually is. However, the bottom part of my wheat bun was kind of soggy. I am not sure the reason for it unless the lettuce was unusually wet. Nonetheless, after waiting for an hour for my food, I wasn’t about to go back and complain. They did run out of unsweetened tea, which I mentioned to the hired help just after ordering. I wasn’t keen on spending a long period of time without drinking what I had ordered, especially after almost $2 for it.

The tea was ready only minutes before my burger and onion rings. I know I shouldn’t eat onion rings on my diet and with diabetes and all. But it’s something I do once in awhile. I’ll try to do better, I promise. Hey, at least I don’t smoke anymore. The onion rings were fantastic. And the burger was good. A good buffalo burger with fat-free cheese is what it was. The burger itself is low in fat, or so I am told, and missing is supposedly some of that other stuff not good for you in beef. I still like beef, especially beef hamburgers.

Novrozky’s, with an “N,” can be found in a number of Southeast Texas towns and in Southwestern Louisiana. I recommend them including the one where I ate today on Dowlen at Folsom in the Kroger Shopping Center. I would suggest you get there ahead of the lunch crowd or just after. They do have a drive-through and have take-out orders, but you are pretty screwed either way if you go at the height of lunch time. If you have the patience and aren’t afflicted with back or any other kind of pain that might erupt from standing and waiting in line for long periods of time, then I would naturally suggest you either come back or go somewhere else.

They’ve got great burgers as long as they aren’t drowning in wet lettuce or something else. They are also a little pricey for hamburgers in this area, almost $13 for my buffalo burger, onion rings and a drink. They are among the best, non-national, of hamburger places in Southeast Texas.

Bravo Zulu. It’s a naval signal meaning “well done.” The origin of the nautical term is not as important as the sentiment in the instance I announce here.

I give a thumbs up to the Department of Veterans Affairs due to a news release I just found in my e-mail. The Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Hospital in Houston has control over a number of outpatient clinics in the region. This includes clinics in Galveston and Beaumont, the latter is where my primary doc is located and where I have to go for my monthly appointment Friday.

The release announced that the VA, in collaboration with the U.S. Housing and Urban Development, has expanded a Section 8 Housing voucher program for homeless veterans.

I see this as some very good news for those veterans here in Beaumont who are homeless. A reason for my seal of approval, chuckle, is because I am a veteran who spent a month or two sleeping in my pickup in some Beaumont parking lots or on McFaddin Beach until I got a job.

How many vets are on the streets of Beaumont, Galveston, or other places in either Jefferson, Galveston or other Southeast Texas counties, I have no clue. I would say one would be too many though.

I have seen, at times, some shoddy and frustrating care from the VA in the 15 years I have used that health care system. I worked for more than five years as a reporter and columnist who covered the VA nationally and locally in Central Texas and have seen some serious problems in veterans’ health care.

The VA isn’t perfect. But, like me, it’s all many of us veterans have. I have always maintained the whole system isn’t bad. It is just a very huge, the second largest cabinet department to Defense if Homeland Security hasn’t overtaken it. It’s bureaucratic. It does have some very excellent people as its employees. I include in that my primary care provider, nurses, and neurologist. I know of others far away from my little area who do incredible work the non-veteran would not imagine. People such as my old college friend, Grace, who is among those doing great research at the VA to help patients suffering bipolar disorder.

I’ve also been mistreated by a few people at the VA who feel a sense of entitlement and should be weeded out.

I give my old Navy congrats, Bravo Zulu, not lightly. I’m sure that doesn’t mean much to many. But this is a very positive step for those in my area who could use help in getting off the street.