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What was I thinking?; Plus: Goodnight Erica. Good morning Erica?

Today’s earlier post contained several errors including in the headline. And it was so stupid beyond belief. I referred to the Swine flu as “H121” instead of the correct “H1N1” virus. Was that stupid or what? And it was throughout the post. A boot up my a** except my feet aren’t working so good. Oh well. I get it.

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I was just watching “Anderson Cooper’s 360” on CNN just now in time to hear the announcement his sidekick Erica Hill is leaving to work for CBS. That doesn’t particularly raise emotions with me one way or the other.  I am not particularly an Anderson Cooper fan, nor am I particularly wild about Erica Hill although she is very pretty. Hill has co-hosted the CBS “Early Show” on Saturdays since September 2008. That’s about it.

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Houston VA: MEDVAMC H1N1 AFT; Plus: Time for 'Horns HC Muschamp?

A memorandum dated Jan. 4  from Adam C. Walmus, director of the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center (MEDVAMC)  in Houston, and e-mailed Jan. 8 by MEDVAMC spokeswoman  Bobbi Gruner announces vaccinations are now available for the 2009 H1N1 flu virus.

All I can say to this is reflected in one of the acronyms used in the headline above, AFT. The acronym, pronounced in the phonetic alphabet we used in the military, is pronounced “Alfa Foxtrot Tango.” I don’t know if that is a widely-used acronym but it’s one I chose to use of the ilk popularized in the Stephen Coonts book and later movie “Flight of the Intruder.” That acronym was “Alfa Mike Foxtrot,” for “adios mother f***er.” I use the acronym “AFT” to mean “Alfa Foxtrot Tango,” to stand for “about f***ing time.”

I am sure there is an explanation why just now, in January 2010, the H1N1 shots are now finally available. The VA has known about the so-called “Swine Flu” for quite some time. A Houston VA press release from October noted:

“The H1N1 Flu is of concern to experts in the medical community because it is so new that very few people have any protection or “immunity” which means the virus may easily find vulnerable people to infect. As a result, it may spread rapidly to large numbers of people. Therefore, health care facilities may find it difficult to care for large numbers of patients with severe illness.”

The October release went on to say the hospital had received 300 doses of the vaccine and listed the priority of those who should get the vaccine. What they didn’t say was did the patients in those priority groups actually receive the shots? What do you want to bet that if I asked the Houston VA who, in fact, received the 300 initial doses I would be told that information cannot be released due to privacy laws?

I said there was probably an explanation why it’s taken so long to get the H1N1 shots to the general patient population within the MEDVAMC kingdom which includes outpatient clinics in Beaumont, Lufkin, Conroe and Galveston. I didn’t say it was a good explanation.

Fortunately, no large outbreaks of the Swine Flu have occured among veterans in this portion of Texas, at least no large outbreaks that come to mind. But the H1N1 is still a pandemic so it’s fortunate there aren’t more dead, especially older or our youngest, veterans.

When the pandemic is over, I hope the VA as a whole will do a thorough after-action review of their reaction to the outbreaks. I’m sure they will, but hopefully it will be honest and not just the same old glazed over horse s**t one seems to see coming from one VA report after another. The whole VA pharmaceutical system needs a careful going-over as well.  I can’t help but think — with such vast differences in medication given from one VA hospital system to another — that the acquisition of medications might be ripe for some kind of corruption. I’m not saying that’s the case, but it’s a suspicion.

Nevertheless, it’s AFT that the Swine Flu shots are available and unless I get the flu first or the VA runs out, I plan to get my vaccine during my next regular appointment in two weeks.

Something’s rotten in Austin

Only a few thoughts to follow up on last night’s “Pasadena Massacre.” I am talking about the Citi BCS National Championship in which Texas QB Colt McCoy was knocked out of the game the first rattle out of the box. I think The Regents should just pay Mack Brown all those millions and move defensive coordinator and heir-apparent Will Muschamp up to head coach.

Man, the game just turned to Bevo poo after freshman Garrett Gilbert was sent in to replace McCoy. I don’t fault Gilbert. I think he showed some flashes of not-badness. It just seemed the game had been choreographed like a Broadway production starring McCoy and the stand-in hadn’t been properly trained to know where the other cast members were supposed to stand.

Gilbert made a few bad passes. He was supposed to, he is a freshman. He also threw some passes that should have been caught. It was if the hearts and souls of the remaining offensive players flew off to the locker room when McCoy departed with his injured shoulder.

Although the score, 37-21 Alabama, doesn’t really reflect it, the Texas defense looked pretty awesome. Alabama QB Greg McElroy was sacked a season-high five times. That is why I think the loss falls mainly on Mack Brown. It was like he never thought of the possibility his star quarterback and field marshal would get hurt. And since the defense was the bright  spot for Texas and that Brown has made defensive guru Muschamp his replacement, Brown should have himself replaced, at head coach at least. They could keep Brown in recruiting and PR. He seems to really excel there.

After watching the game, I believe that Texas could have won if McCoy had not been knocked out of the game. But that’s not a given. Running back Mark Ingram brought back visions of “The Earl of Texas,” that being Earl Campbell. Both were backs which reminded me of Hurricane Rita blasting her way through the Pineywoods. There wasn’t anyone able to stop her. The same goes for Earl and the Tide’s Ingram. As I heard one caller to a sports talk show say this afternoon, the game was one “played by boys against men.” In a way, the caller was right.

Still, you have to wonder what would have been had McCoy not been injured. And you wonder what round McCoy will go in the NFL draft who picks him. Also, I heard it said that Alabama’s McElroy had never lost a football  game since the eighth grade. How do  you think he will feel when he gets to the NFL and finally loses that first game?

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'Bama and Horns take to the field. Stay seated.

Perhaps I could write about the upcoming talk Prez Obama will be giving shortly about the suspected terrorist now dubbed “The Underwear Bomber” and how things fell through cracks in our intelligence and security systems. But why bother? I’m sure it’s important and probably well-intentioned and even insightful. However, it’s only going to lead to more screaming and lying, yes lying, by Republicans lawmakers whose jobs are predominantly legislators, but these days we find them mostly in the obstruction and prevarication fields.

So I go with something not important to millions worldwide, but nonetheless important here in the United States — the National Championship.

I say only the national championship because probably more people know what I am talking about with those two words than do not. That is, the four or five people who actually read this blog. The game tonight is formally titled the Citi BCS National Championship. The first two words make me cringe when I say that: “Citi,” as in bank whose tele-support people can give me major pains in the ass, and “BCS” for Bowl Championship Series a.k.a. Big Crappy System. I have a credit card for my job, a requirement of my job actually, through Citi. And, like many others, I think the BCS stinks as a way to pick champions. The simple way to improve picking champions involves playoffs. Thus more games. Thus more TV revenue, one would think. Thus perhaps not as many fans with their noses out of their collective joints over their teams either not making the cut or losing the games.

One also would not have to lose any bowls in such a system although I don’t think it would hurt to cut a few here or there since there are 34 bowls. I think that’s a bit much.

Texas is the underdog in the game, which is good in a way. I like underdogs, mostly. But I am rooting for the Longhorns. I know some of my more rabid Texas A & M friends and family might not like that. Some are so rabid they want to see A & M lose any game, period. That’s kind of how I used to feel about the Dallas Cowboys. I still am not much of a Cowboys fan but under certain situations I like to see them win.

I’m not going to analyze the upcoming game because I only know a little about each team having seen them play a few times and I speak of, mostly, Texas. All I can say is I hope it’s a good, clean contest and perhaps without the insanity some such games, including ones Alabama played, have produced. The 1954 Cotton Bowl comes to mind during which the Crimson Tide’s fullback Tommy Lewis jumped from the bench as he saw Rice halfback Dick Moegle heading up the sidelines toward a score. Lewis then tackled Moegle — keep in mind he had been sitting on the bench  — prompting the zebras to give Rice a touchdown and Moegle a 95-yard run. Rice won, maybe for the last time or so it seems, 28-6.

There is a lesson there. Maybe more than one but probably the biggest being don’t go on the field when your butt is supposed to be planted to the bench. See there, it’s pretty simple. Go ‘Horns!

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First endorsement of the year: Texas House District 9

Democrat Kenneth Franks will once again challenge incumbent Republican Rep. Wayne Christian for the Texas House, District 9, race in November.

Franks, a retired teacher and now rancher and businessman from Pineland, announced his candidacy in an e-mail to eight feet deep sent Tuesday. Christian was first elected to the House in 1995. Christian is a financial advisor from Center. He has served six terms in the Texas House. Christian advises potential investors on his Web site: “Those wanting to “play the market” might want to move on to another site. Our clients provide us their “serious” dollars they don’t desire to lose.” A staunch conservative, Christian said he was honored to be named one of the “worst legislators” by Texas Monthly. So proud is he.

Both state Democratic and Republican party Web sites, checked today, indicated Franks and Christian will have no primary election challengers. The filing deadline was Monday.

District 9 encompasses the Pineywoods counties of Shelby, Nacogdoches, Jasper, San Augustine and Sabine with a total population of almost 140,000 residents, according to the 2000 Census.

Christian defeated Franks by 62-35 percent during the November 2008 General Election. He is president of the Texas Conservative Coalition, which its Web site says is for individual liberty, limited government, free enterprise and traditional family values.

But even though Rep. Christian might espouse some of those virtues, Christian does not seem bothered by favors askew with these values when it serves the Representative or his friends. One wonders if  Wayne Christian was thinking limited government and individual liberty when he sneaked in a last-minute bill  allowing reconstruction of  his beach house on Bolivar Peninsula — out of his legislative district — which was considered by the state as open beach after the property was rearranged by Hurricane Ike. Perhaps Christian and his ilk see limited government as good government … just as long as it is good for Rep. Christian and his beach neighbors.

I don’t know Kenneth Franks very well, mostly our conversations have been via e-mail. We do have some friends and relatives in common. I also wouldn’t be honest if I said I knew all of the policy positions of either Mr. Franks or Rep. Christian. But I do know a little of the non-policy side of Kenneth Franks.

Kenneth grew up in the home of an educator and he spent almost 30 years as a teacher. He was in the inaugural class at Angelina Junior College — now Angelina College — in Lufkin. He transferred to The University of Texas in Austin where he received his undergraduate degree. He later received a Master’s of Education from Stephen F. Austin, back in the Pineywoods, in Nacogdoches. He has taught in schools from 5A to Class A classification.  After retiring from teaching, Kenneth now ranches and operates a car wash.

It is perhaps the education side that drives Kenneth to want student testing to be meaningful and not puntative. Kenneth, according to campaign information on his Web site, supports pay that will actually provide  better lives for teachers and support staffs. He also supports fully funding mandates that will make college tuition more affordable for all eligible students and to help potential teachers  with more financial assistance.

I spent a lot of time in several of the counties of District 9. Add up the three times I lived  there, and I would have lived roughly a quarter of my life in Nacogdoches County. It’s been awhile since I lived there but it will always feel like a “second hometown” to me. That is one reason I want a good Democratic state representative for District 9. The other reason is Texas needs more Democrats in the Legislature. I’m talking Dems who will actually represent and do the state’s business and not those Dems or GOP-ers who are only interested in better positioning themselves.

I think Kenneth will be a fine state representative who happens to be a Democrat. So my first official endorsement of 2010, for what it’s worth, is for Kenneth Franks for District 9, Texas House of Representatives.

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Dubai, as elsewhere, the sky's no limit

One has to wonder if watching clips of the fireworks marking the celebration of the new world’s tallest building brought to many minds — at least in the U.S. — the horrors of 9/11.

The Burj Khalifa opened amid fanfare in the city-state of Dubai, which could easily be known now as “Buddy, Can You Spare Tens of Billions of Dollars Land,” the half-mile high structure rising ever skyward in glorification of excess and in a toast to some of Sigmund Freud’s most provocative theories.

People will work and live and pray in this building and who knows what else. I cannot fathom how anyone can live way up. I’m not talking a few stories, or even 20 or so stories, but perhaps more than 160 stories?

Part of my misgivings come from having worked as a fireman and witnessing for myself that those ladders and snorkles on trucks only reach so far, and not really much at that. Then, of course, there was 9/11. People walking down floor after floor amid an unspeakable tragedy, trudging down stairs, not even running for their lives, in what must have seen a nightmare featuring a living hell in which time ended only by escape or annihilation.

There is no reason for living way up. A pretty woman perhaps? I did stay a week in a 20th floor apartment overlooking the Mississippi River in a certain large, Midwestern city. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

I was in Chicago back in 1995 when the Sears Building was still the Sears Building and was the World’s Tallest Building. It’s now the Willis Tower. I hope it wasn’t named after that character in the TV show  in the late 1970s and 80s who was the brother of Arnold, a.k.a. “”What’choo talkin’ ’bout?”  That Willis got into a bunch of trouble when he got older. See what excess will do for you?

Nevertheless, I took a ride to the top of the then-world’s tallest building. I looked around to see what I could see. Then I rode that speedy elevator down to the bottom.

Even the name of the new tallest building is steeped into the grossest of financial insanity. The backers of the project named the building after the sheik running Abu Dhabi. Sheik Daddy is the fellow who poured in tens of billions into the fiscally challenged fantasy land where megabucks and the right connection could build you an island in the shake of a tail feather.

It’s all about “mine is bigger than yours.” That is why the World’s Third Largest Fire Hydrant in my town is no longer the world’s largest. Things have got to be bigger and, hopefully, better.

At the end of the story last night on CBS about this new high-rise, Katie Couric did mention the structure had these new safety features and could withstand being struck by a plane. She didn’t say how big a plane. I do think, though, that proved at least some of us were on the same page about 9/11 and tall buildings.

People, men mostly, will keep building ’em taller and taller. Dubai can  have it’s old World’s tallest because one will emerge from somewhere even higher some days. Perhaps as the ‘scraper shoots ever taller, through the clouds to where the top of the building can’t even be seen, someday a great giant will emerge. The giant will throw a super-duty bean stalk over the side of the structure and he will take perhaps but a minute before he rappels to the street level. What the giant does then is better left to the imagination.

Does this sound a bit farfetched? You tell me. The sky no longer seems the limit.