I’m watching the news about the situation of the earthquake aftermath in Haiti. Not much to say but if you feel compelled to help, there are plenty of places where you might so offer. There are too many for me to link. Just look for your best charity or find charities in the yellow pages, put the pages on the wall and throw a dart at it. Whatever you hit, call that organization or look at their Web site. You can’t go wrong.
Does the loss of one politician signal loss of power?
Not much that comes out of Waco, Texas, interests me much anymore. I’m sad to say that because I do have a few friends there. But I look back upon the seven years I lived in Waco as a chapter in my life. Enough said.
I must confess that I was interested to hear that region’s incumbent state Sen. Kip Averitt was bowing out of his re-election effort citing “health reasons.”
Averitt is a Republican and is described and I believe is a moderate one. Another GOP-er from Burleson — south of Fort Worth — is on the ballot. No Democrats are running and the only opposition to GOP candidate Darren Yancy are some Libertarian candidates.
I knew Averitt and, although I didn’t agree with his Republican politics, he certainly threw whatever he had handy to help out in major local issues. Well, one might ask, isn’t that what a legislator is supposed to do? Perhaps, but sometimes legislators try to make themselves larger fish in their small pond. Averitt didn’t try to to that although he became, I think, fairly influential in the Lege. It didn’t hurt that he had as a mentor former Sen. David Sibley, another Waco Republican, as a mentor and boss. As well, it didn’t hurt Averitt that he represented and was of the same party as former governor and later President George W. “Gee Dubya” Bush.
Averitt, Bush and the Texas House equivalent of Democratic majority leader, Rep. Jim Dunnam, gave Waco some stature in the state politically. Along with the very sharp U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, who Nancy Pelosi talked up at one point as a possible VP candidate for Barack Obama, the Waco and transplanted (Bush) pols helped make Waco fairly formidable politically. This came in handy with certain problems Waco had, such as water pollution the city blamed on upstream dairies and a threat of closing the Waco VA hospital. The latter, of course, is a federal matter but Averitt’s political muscle didn’t hurt when appealing to fellow Republicans such as the state’s two U.S. senators.
Gee Dubya is now hanging mostly in North Dallas and no longer president and main draw to Crawford. He actually lived a few miles outside of Crawford, which is located along with Waco in McLennan County. With Averitt’s departure, one wonders how Waco will fare politically in state matters and political power?
Such changes do not signal a failed (portion of a) state. It happens and has happened in Texas since 1845. Really, I guess, even before Texas was a state. State politics in Texas have seen influence alternate from rural to urban, East Texas to Central Texas, Central Texas to South Texas. And predictably some cities have had more pull at one time than others.
All in all, politics happens.
I wish Kip the best with whatever health problems he has. I can identify. Mine, luckily, haven’t been life-threatening and I hope neither is his.
Another stupid story sinks amid death and destruction
It’s funny — not in the “ha-ha” way but in the sad way — how it takes total devastation and thousands of lives to knock a stupid, nothing story off the front page and off cable news.
But that is just what the tragic and ultra-destructive earthquake in Haiti did to “Negrogate,” the furor over the slip of the tongue among friends that was never meant as a malignant comment. Look even on the Web page of the most politically polarizing cable news network, Fox, and you don’t see anything about Harry Reid on the main page — or at least I didn’t this afternoon. There are hardly any political stories on there at all. It’s all Haiti, where it rightfully should be.
The all-Harry-Reid-beating-all-the-time has stopped, for now. That is even though the stupidity of “the message” has become all politics. It has to have political polarization or it is not on cable news, at least. But such stupid stories haven’t always been limited to party politics. Remember Chandra Levy?
I have mentioned here before but I think it is worth mentioning again the worst “sort-of-true” prediction I ever made.
In August 2001, when Gee Dubya was out cutting brush all day on the Crawford ranch, not much was in the news. That is except for the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit story.
During that time I was sitting in a holding room at an airport in Waco awaiting Air Force One’s arrival. I forget the occasion. I was among a group of reporters and news photographers who were waiting to be screened, mostly for the photographer’s camera equipment, by the Secret Service and the then ATF. Our conversations ended up on the Chandra-gate, I mean no disrespect to the murdered woman, but the story did not merit the media’s shock and awe it was given.
One news photographer, predictably from CNN, said he thought the Levy story was a great one. I said I thought it was a dud, but I added, “It will probably stay as the lead until someone crashes an airliner into the Empire State Building.”
We were just journalists talking. We engaged in gallows humor and idiocy because of what we’ve experienced or because we were just a bunch of geeks. Never did I ever imagine something similar as I predicted would happen in less than a month. I really did feel bad about making that comment after 9/11.
In reality, the Harry Reid story is even less compelling, and certainly even less dramatic and interesting than the Levy story. Reid was being just like I was among those geeks in Waco. He didn’t mean anything by it. But for good measure and the sake of the black vote, Reed apologized and President Obama said “de nada.”
The semantics of the Senate Majority Leader’s verbal faux pas — sorry I didn’t mean to have to chi-chi foreign words so close together — are about the only thing interesting in this whole mess. It’s not like Reid used the “N” word, or as the little ol’ white ladies I grew up around used to say politely, “Nigra.” He didn’t even say “colored.” If some blacks are offended, I’m sorry. But if they are, I think they could more constructively put that upset toward being used by the Republicans to put one more hole in the Democrats’ big tent.
I am no Harry Reid fan. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi. I would rather see decent Democrats elected than both of those whatevers. But sometimes I just wish stupidity could be abolished, at least just for a little while. Maybe it can be put aside to help some folks, mostly “of color,” who are hurting really bad in Haiti.
A small victory with a giant foe
Congratulations T-Mobile. After a year and a half of crappy service you finally let me out of my contract without having to pay the $200 early termination fee. I guess if you complain long enough and loud enough and profane enough and file multiple complaints with the Better Business Bureau you may finally get a little to go right your way in the ongoing battle with the big, evil cellular company.
It, on the surface, seems that a little sense is made in the fact that my Broadband is with Verizon, so just maybe I should add a telephone to that contract. Which is exactly what I did and wasted no time doing it. I got what appears to be a better phone for $10 plus a much better plan — 900-some-odd as opposed to 300 just vanished with each new month — and the cost should be roughly the same as having separate cell and Internet plans. I say should be. I have been screwed with so many times by telecoms that I feel I have to stay awake all night to make sure they don’t pull some new BS with me. Or so it feels.
Ah, a bit o’ justice, for a little while at least with a new phone company and a new phone. And now, I have to learn how to work the damn thing by reading a owner’s manual that my long-dead dog could have written better. Let the fun begin.
Memories of the "cool" way to ride
The temperature was in the upper 20s when I left for work this morning.
Not long after I got there I heard the unmistakable wail of a electromechanical siren. As far as I know, only the fire department here in Beaumont uses them anymore. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, an electromechanical or mechanical siren is the big, silver, bullet-shaped device now seen mostly on fire trucks. Such sirens are becoming increasingly rare since the multi-toned “woo-woo” electronic siren has been the emergency vehicle warning signal of choice for probably the past 40 years.
Sure enough, from my office window I saw a fire engine crossing Willow and heading west on Calder. I thought for just a second about how one issue those riding that engine no longer have to “sweat” is braving the cold while hanging onto the tailboard.
Riding the tailboard or “back step” of fire engines have largely gone the way of mechanical sirens and being a “leather lunger” by entering burning buildings without an Air Pack. Most career and probably very many volunteer departments banned the practice because it was too dangerous. Firefighters could fall off a moving truck or get rear-ended or might be ejected if the engine was to careen out of control in an accident.
When I worked as a firefighter we rode the tailboard — come hail or high water. One engine company I worked with had — definitely a luxury in our small department — five men. Three firefighters rode the back step. Our Air Packs were mounted on the wall and we would back into them and strap them on, all ready for action once we were on scene. One time while still a rookie I wondered out loud what would happen with us hanging on to a metal bar and standing on a metal step, if lightning were to strike us and particularly if the strike hit my Air Pack?
One of my cohorts said something to the effect that such an incident would send me shooting into the clouds like a bottle rocket. I didn’t know if that could actually happen or not, but it sounded dangerous so I thought: “Cool.”
We were taught in rookie school that the trick to riding the back step was flexing your arms and knees to better absorb the bumps. We weren’t taught that riding back there on a 20-minute drive into the countryside in subfreezing weather would freeze just about everything your body had to offer if not properly attired.
For the first time in my life that first winter I worked I bought some long johns. I grew up where you didn’t really need a pair during the winter unless you worked outdoors or did something foolish like ride on the back of a speeding fire truck.
We had a matched set of Laverne pumpers at our Central Station. The were big honking fire engines, bringing to mind aircraft crash trucks. Since this was the late 70s or 80s, we called the engines Laverne and Shirley. These trucks had back steps to get up to the hose bed and lay some line but the firefighters (the rank, mere peons, not the profession collective) rode in the jump seat which were mounted amidships, or just behind the cab. Here the chauffeur (again the rank and not “James” of “Home, James” fame )could operate the pumper as well.
The jumper seat had seat belts and we might have been somewhat safer, though probably still exposed to more auditory damage being only a foot or two behind the electronic sirens, if we actually belted ourselves in. But we wanted to get our Scott packs on and be ready for action. Plus, we wanted to see if there was a big plume of smoke, or the big red glow, indicating a “burner.”
I spent most of my short firefighting career — moonlighting as a college student — at a small three-man station. There I would ride the back step. But if we had cold or bad weather, the lieutenant had all three of us riding up front. It was real cozy.
Just before I started writing I read this forum in a firefighting magazine’s blog about this very topic. Many of the firefighters these days never rode the tailboard. Some sensibly said they think it was idiotic to ride the tailboard, which in terms of safety and liability is true. But as others pointed out, it had a coolness factor that outweighed any perceived danger.
It was cold as hell riding back on the tail at times but when springtime rolled around and we’d cruise through the college with those young coeds wearing those tight shorts for the first time of the season, the tailboard was the place to be.
Ah the folly of youth and the thoughts of “forever young.” I never got hurt riding the back step. I never came close to being hurt. That doesn’t count the time I seriously thought I might die when I passed the object of our mission, a burning gasoline tanker. Of course, I guess that doesn’t count because I was riding ol’ Shirley and had to catch the plug to energize the supply line and I was standing up then instead of sitting strapped into my jump seat.
Anyway, that fire engine this morning sure stirred up the memory ignition. Those memories were both cold and cool — like a nice cool drink on a warm day — or something like it.