Eight Feet Deep

It was no surprise that political fallout was the focus of the attempted bombing over the weekend of an airliner that was landing in Detroit.

It’s Christmas. Most officialdom is elsewhere. President Obama was vacationing in Hawaii. Hey, there’s nothing like taking cheap shots at your opponent when he’s thousands of miles away.

Our favorite carbuncle, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., was on CNN almost it seems before passengers were herded off the Northwest Airlines Airbus that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up upon descent from a Amsterdam to Detroit flight. Abdulmutallab managed only to ignite a small fire and roast his chestnuts.

With no one else to answer their questions, the national media had the Republican noise machine handy to lay the blame. Yes, everything wrong is Obama’s fault 24-7 so why should this be any different?

That Abdulmutallab’s father, a wealthy retired Nigerian banking mogul, had supposedly warned the U.S. Embassy  that his son might be teetering over the edge into radical Islam is no doubt disturbing. And also unnerving is that the alleged screw-up bomber flew from Nigeria and Amsterdam to the U.S. while being on some kind of watch list.

But if one might remember, we’ve seen this all before and worse. Do you recall the so-called Shoe Bomber? Even worse what about people known by the FBI to have taken flight training just to take off and not land, and ended up murdering 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania? Oh mighty members of the right who want to lay all the blame on the Obama administration might recall but won’t say so that all of this happened during George W. Bush’s tenure.

Should the Obama administration have had some improvements made in airline security during the past year? One would hope so. However, when I last flew two months ago it was indicated I was on some kind of government security-threat list. I know this because I was unable to print my boarding pass online and was told as much by airline personnel. I wasn’t subjected to any strip search, however, and I was able to print my boarding pass on the return flight. And I have a very common name, for God’s sake.

So yes, the Obama administration deserves some blame. But so does George W. Bush. Probably so do many others. At least, thankfully, no more life has been yet lost due to these cowardly zealots. Before piling on the Obama administration, the flighty public should take a breath, read, and figure out what’s going on with everything before joining in with the angry crowd of right-wingers who have no other agenda than regaining power in Congress and the White House.

 Tonight millions of little boys and girls will be nestled all snug in their beds as visions of sugar plums dance in their heads. Or else, they will be in bed playing some hideously violent video games, perhaps in between, thinking of the gore which the game they will find tomorrow morning under the Christmas tree contains.

 Perhaps parents in “more traditional” homes will read their kids “The Night Before Christmas,” a rather quaint yet enduring poem about a visit from St. Nick originally published in the early 19th century. Certainly the children having “sugar plums” dancing through their head is a quite obsolete reference these days, unless the kids happen to be ripped on some kind of illicit drug.

 Great literary works usually are rewarded with a parody sometime along the line. As for our “Night Before Christmas” one might see variations such as this, for Pennsylvania deer hunters, “The PA Deer Hunter’s Night Before Christmas.”

  “… I looked out the window across the moonlite snow with glee,
  HOLY COW, there was 8 big buck standing underneath the tree.
  I grabbed the 30-06 and started the sneak,
  because I knew the game wardens were all asleep … “

 And in the southeast corner of Texas, adjacent to southern Louisiana, where I live and itself home to a large Cajun population is the “The Cajun Night Before Christmas” complete with a fractured-English-Cajun dialect:

    ” … Then up through the bayou
           Dey got such a clatter
           Make soun’ like old Boudreau
           Done fall off his ladder … “

Christmas stories are just as large a part of the holiday itself. Take for instance, the story of the Baby Jesus, de t’ing what got it started all. And over the years I have kept a keen eye out for a good Christmas story only to come up empty. That is, until reading a story by a witty writer named David Sedaris. Sedaris was raised in North Carolina, is gay and now resides in France. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. He has written a number of books which are compilations of mostly autobiographical-to-auto-fiction-graphical essays, many of which tales either involve his travels or life with a rather unusual family that includes his sister, comedian Amy Sedaris.

 I first read the Christmas story to which I refer in the Dec. 1, 2002, edition of Esquire. The piece is called “Six to Eight Black Men.” It is a tale of Sedaris trying to understand the subtleties of the Dutch version of Santa Claus, who was traditionally accompanied by “six to eight black men.” These black men were originally slaves but modern sensibilities transformed them in more recent times to “just good friends,” albeit with nothing in between. It was teased in Esquire thusly:

    ‘A heartwarming tale of Christmas in a foreign land where, if you’ve been naughty, SAINT NICK and his friends give you an ass-whuppin.’

 So settle back for a glimpse into another country’s version of Santa, have a few chuckles and be glad you’re an American where you might just find yourself in the deep woods staring at a blind deer hunter.

 Click here to read: “Six or Eight Black Men,” by David Sedaris

  Have a Merry Christmas.

Den Mama in de fireplace, Done roas’ up de ham  Stir up de gumbo, An’ make bake de yam.
	Den out on de by-you, Dey got such a clatta, Make soun’ like ole Boudreau, Done fall off his ladder.

Last night two of my brothers and I had a brief conversation on Facebook concerning what some see as backroom deals made in the Senate to pass the health care reform bill. Well, it really wasn’t a conversation, we just posted our opinions.

My brothers, like the majority of my friends, have differing opinions from those of mine. It’s no biggie. It’s the price for growing up and continuing to live in Texas during this day and age.

Compromise and going all out to secure it looms large at the very essence of our political system today. We like keeping our local military base open (I’m just being rhetorical here) or we are happy when our local police and fire department get federal grants. But sometimes those goodies come come to Papa smelling all the world like bacon, ham and spare ribs. Umm, umm, umm. You love you some pork.

Federal largesse and its distribution to the voting public is actually much more complex than that and because I am tired, I will leave the subject to another day to discuss. So why did I devote three paragraphs to the above? It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Instead, I am going to spend a minute or two on the subject of President Barack Obama and his role in eventually passing a health care reform package.

Now this reform bill is something Obama wants very much or you wouldn’t be seeing members of Congress hanging around a snow-bound Washington three days before Christmas. But there are those who see Obama providing very little leadership in this extraordinary legislative battle. Some even say that it seems the President is just sitting back and letting Congress fight out among themselves.

Until the Washington press corps gets off their duffs (what is a duff anyway?) and start reporting instead of being stenographers, or else, until Bob Woodward or someone else on the inside of the Beltway elite writes a book about it, we won’t know whether Obama fiddled around while Capitol Hill (figuratively) burned.

So, indulge me in a scenario of the question regarding presidential leadership of the health care issue, his number one priority:

Off we go:

Obama and his minions are plugged in with tin cans and a long-ass string that runs down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol, or however they stay in touch, calling every shot. Some Senators don’t like being told what to do, like Righteous Joe Lieberman. Therefore, Obama being the coach sends in another play.

Eventually, the bill gets passed. It is 2010. Congressional races everywhere. The opposition no longer has health reform as the dead horse on which to beat. And, by summertime the economy has drastically improved. Sure, unemployment is still  higher than we would like, but that situation too is turning around.

Only the true believers of the Tea Party still harp on health reform, socialism, taxation, gayness and other evils of the Democrats. It could prove to be the undoing of the Republican party though  if some responsible leadership does not arise from the GOP in the nick of time.

Come November, the schism in the Republican party rears its ugly head as independent congressional candidates and the GOP nominees split the vote, resulting in a huge win for the Democratic congressional candidates.

And guess what? A good many of those candidates were vetted by the Obama machine. When they take their seats in Congress in 2011, unreliable Democrats like Ben Nelson or Republican In Name Onlies like Susan Collins or Independent flakes like Lieberman will no longer be needed for a super majority vote.

As this plays out, we see some of the failed measures which almost split the extreme liberal wing from the Democratic party over the health care compromises return. For Republicans, the dreaded “Public Option” once again rears its head. And the next thing you know, Obama is on  his way to a  second term.

Now granted, all of the above sounds like a terrific tale. When I say terrific I mean way out there, although I think it might be terrific in other ways. It’s just a guess though. It’s just picking up a dart and throwing it at the wall when there is no dart board in sight.

But it could happen. And if it happens, then don’t say I didn’t warn you. Then I’ll start on predicting the next Super Bowl winners followed by those in the World Series. Or whichever comes first.

Tommy Kelly lost his pants.

Such is a lede (lead) that could launch practically any classic tale of the vulnerability or humility of man. But here it is, likely for the Oakland Raiders defensive tackle, a source of embarrassment that will follow him for some time if not ensure him a place in his own locker room’s best jokes.

If you didn’t hear or see the clip on the Web, Kelly’s pants somehow fell off while playing in front of a CBS television audience and only 67,000 some-odd live people at Denver’s Invesco Field at Mile High Sunday. At least the Raiders picked up a win, putting them at a grim 4-9-0 for the season.

No matter how disconcerting the incident in which Kelly was em-bare-assed it is likely that only fools, drunks and drunken fools who aren’t football players will bring up the matter if they run across the Raider in person one day. At 6-feet, 6 inches tall and 300 pounds, yeah, only his fellow pros might make him the butt of their jokes and then likely only those around his height and girth. Certainly few place kickers will deride him.

But all kidding aside, it was an interesting and entertaining week in pro football. And sad.

The weekend games carried the shadow of Cincinnati wide receiver Chris Henry’s death on Thursday. Henry fell out of a pickup truck bed during a domestic dispute. Such things shouldn’t happen during one of the Bengals’ most promising seasons after years of rare winning seasons. But they do and they did.

However, the games go on and are bigger than just one man. That is, unless you are Brett Favre. When his head coach wanted to bench the star Vikings quarterback, the Methuselah From Mississippi just wouldn’t go.

Then, no matter how much the loud and the not-so-loud Saints fans were disappointed, their undefeated streak finally came to end with their loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Oh well, as I (a Saints fan) told an acquaintance watching the game, it’s not the Super Bowl.

As for my main team, the Texans, well, they managed to climb their way out of the hole with a three-point win over St. Louis. There is hope for a wild card berth if they can win their last two games and a hole opens up and swallows half the AFC who knows what other teams have to win and which have to lose.

So why write about the NFL on Monday when I could write about the Senate passing their version of the health care bill and the climate change talks in Copenhagen? Are you nuts? It’s the NFL in December!