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¿Cómo se dice? Bank robber en Beaumont? o Huckabee?

 Goodness gracious. Another bank robber in our fair city. One bad effect a city located on one of the nation’s most traveled Interstates — I speak of IH-10 — faces is bank robbery. It’s relatively easy for a committed bank robber to drive off the interstate, rob a bank and then hit the freeway in one direction or another. Police will not say whether this is the same bank robber who robbed a Houston bank and apparently looked similar to this fellow, according to a local media report. I wonder what that Houston bank robber’s nickname might be? You know they all seem to get nicknames, like the Grandma Bandit.

 Our  — as in Beaumont, Texas’ — bandit entered the Wells Fargo Bank at 595 IH-10 North on Tuesday morning and robbed the place while “displaying” a silver handgun, according to a Beaumont Police Department press release. Police like to use words like “display.” It’s like “Hey ya’ll, isn’t this the prettiest 9 mm pistol you’ve ever seen? Now how ’bout that cash?”

 Bank employees triggered the silent alarm and officers were told the suspect was last seen running on foot toward an apartment complex behind the bank. Police and a “K-9 Unit,” a.k.a. “a DOG and handler,” searched for the bandit to no avail.

He could be displaying his weapon in this photo.
He could be displaying his weapon in this photo.

 Police describe the suspect as a Hispanic male, 5 feet, 10 inches to 6 feet in height, 180 pounds, dark complexion, wearing dark sunglasses, a blue button shirt and having short black hair. I’m sure he wears those sunglasses and blue shirt everywhere — to bed, playing basketball, working on his car. Okay, I’m picking at the descriptions the police give out. I’ve written a hundred of these for news stories when I worked as a reporter, but they sound kind of funny out of context. This one is actually a better description than some I have seen on local TV reports, such as “a black male, between 5′ 11″ and 6 feet, 175-190 pounds.” Hmm. I bet there aren’t too many of those running around.

 Now I thought I had a suspect when I saw the shot below taken from a bank camera. Even though the police description lists him as Hispanic and dark-complected, he isn”t all that dark, at least in my opinion. Now, if you forget that the man is supposedly Hispanic and dark-complected, in this picture at least, doesn’t he bear a slight resistance to former Arkansas Governor and failed candidate for the Republican nomination Mike Huckabee? 

"I'd appreciate your vote -- and your money."
"I'd appreciate your vote -- and your money."

 

I mean, look at him. Maybe Huckabee  with a tan?

Perhaps a bit younger Mike Huckabee with a tan.

Oh well. That’s my contribution to the community today. That is partly why I try to write about things like this because I have a forum to do so and, who knows, maybe someone surfing blogs stumbles across this one and just might recognize the robber I now dub the “Senor Mike Huckabee-almost-look-a-like-bandit-if-Huckabee-was-Hispanic.” That person calls the police and clang, he’s behind bars. You know, someone might see this guy taking a nap out in his chaise lounge wearing his sunglasses, blue buttoned shirt and displaying his handgun.

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Don't judge an unsolicited opinion by its deliverer

The idiom “Don’t judge a book by its cover” has been around in one form or another for probably, well, let’s just say a very long time.

Nonetheless, if the adage is cliche to one or the other then all I can do is provide a response with an acronymn, delivered in the phonetic alphabet, kind of like you hear fighter pilots do in movies. My phonetic message is: “SIERRA, ALPHA, TANGO, SIERRA,” which is short for “sorry about that s**t. In other words, don’t judge a book by its cover suits my needs insofar as this — hopefully — short post exists.

I stopped to talk with a neighbor upon returning from the store. After a few words or so, he launched into a discourse about how the elections in Virginia and New Jersey today should tell the tale of just how screwed up that blankety-blank Obama is doing.

Now I wrote a line or two about this yesterday saying I don’t think these few scattered elections are going to tell anything about how Obama is doing in office, the state of the Democrats or the future for the divisions within the Republican party. So, I told my neighbor I didn’t think the elections will matter one damn bit except in those states. He went just right along with his rant.

I have never discussed politics with my neighbor. He probably doesn’t even know I blog or have what some refer to as a “liberal” blog. I don’t particularly see EFD that way, but whatever works. I am a liberal in the good sense, but mostly a moderate and conservative on other matters and even libertarian on still others. The neighbor’s take on matters is rather obvious, a “watch Fox News all-the-time ultra conservative Republican.” This is obvious because he spouts the party line every time I see him.

What puzzles me is why he thinks I would like to hear his, mostly wrong, political opinion. Is it because I look like a redneck? I get along with some of the rednecks who live around here. I don’t get along with some of the crackheads. So is that why my neighbor targets me as a Limbaugh-boostin’ Obama hater?

The same happens when I am in the waiting room at the VA clinic. Some guy wearing a World War II GI-rene veteran ball cap — thank him for his service — comes in and starts blasting away at how Obama is ruining this universe, not to mention the Corps, Semper Fi! Of course, at the VA you’re liable to get some long-hair guy wearing a biker’s vest with Vietnam veteran patches who either starts saying the same type of thing, or else he goes off on the Republicans, which he blames all the way back to Dick Nixon.

Surely it isn’t just me. My past mental health counselor labeled me as  having a narcissistic personality disorder, so that statement should be a sign of progress, yes? Well, perhaps not. The point is, why do people who you really don’t know that well or at all approach you and unload upon you with their opinions — or the opinions of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Limbaugh and Fox News?

The same goes for religion. I don’t mind having a rational discussion about religion but I don’t like people who get in my face and tell me I’m going to Hell when in fact they don’t know me well enough to know where I might be going. Nederland, Texas, for instance. I have had very civil discussions about religion with Mormon missionaries who neatly parked their bikes outside my place and were extremely polite. They even gave me a Book of Mormon, which I have somewhere.

But I am getting out of the octagon here. People approaching me about religion, I think, would be less likely based on how I look than politics. The truth  is, though, I have to think that a good many people who give me their political outlook unsolicited do it because, well, I’m not sure why they do it. I guess the weather became to passé.

Some probably do see in me the look of a Limbaugh-Palin conservative: Shaved head, overweight, unhappy looking most of the time (although that is from chronic pain and not from figurative pains in the ass), known to wear ball caps with the Houston Astros logo. There you go.

If that be the case, then I wish people would cease and desist. Stop judging this book by its cover, or whatever the hell else it is that’s wrong with you!

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It's like this, Catfish

 It feels like an odds and ends type of day. That means I write about odds and ends of life, liberty and the pursuit of dinner.

ohohohohohohohohohohohohoohohohohohohohohohohoh — The oho line. Figure it out and win a prize. Yeah, and if you believe that …

 It’s laundry and more specifically drying time. That was such a beautiful song. Wasn’t that Ray Charles? “Oh it’s drying time again, you’re going to leave me/I can see that faraway look in your eyes … ” Oh  yeah, it was crying, not drying. No s**t man, Ray sang that, faraway look and all.

StopmebeforeIstartmakingsenseIhaveyettoandIdonotbelievethatisgoingtohappenbutseriouslyfolks.

 All the politicians and cable news pundits are talking about how a few elections such as a single congressional race in New York state and the contest for governor in New Jersey will be the big “report card” on the Obama administration. I thought they did that on the first 100 days. The truth is, it gives the talking heads something to talk about, as if they were totally without a subject of discussion. It just beats me to a smashed doodle bug.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 The Texans looked awesome yesterday. Buffalo, not so much.

☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤☤

 I just got back my EMG report from two weeks ago. It would be nice to have a neurologist to explain it to me since one did the test. But I suppose the Department of Veterans Affairs has a plan. Yeah, I bet. Especially since I don’t have a “personal” primary care physician or physicians assistant or nurse practitioner. You see, my clinic is short two primary care people right now, or they was last week. So who knows when I will get a doctor for my very own who can oversee the testing that Dr. G-V recommended in his report: “Screen for causes of peripheral neuropathy (metabolic, toxic, nutritional).” Yeah, and all that good doctor stuff

9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 

Whazzup? (Photo courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Department © 2006)
Whazzup? (Photo courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Department © 2006)

See you later, Catfish.

I just felt the need to call someone Catfish today.

Doesn’t the urge hit you every once in awhile to call someone

Catfish? No?

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Friends don't let friends play hurt

Talk about sidelined! Even if the turf on Rebel Field in Evadale, Texas, dries sufficiently this evening after pounding rainfall, the stadium will remain silent from the bustle of the gridiron. That is because the scheduled battle between the Evadale Rebels and the Chester Yellowjackets has been canceled. In fact, the Yellowjackets’ remaining season has been canceled.

Football ended for Chester on Oct. 23 after what turned out to be their final game, which was against High Island. In that game, seven Yellowjacket players suffered season-ending injuries, according to the Beaumont Enterprise. With a student body of 58 attending Chester High School — located in a town of only 256 about 90 miles northeast of Houston — the football team is comprised of 20 of the 26 boys who attend classes there. Another student broke his foot the week before. You do the math.

Yes, the Yellowjackets could still field a team provided no one got hurt in the last two games. A team with a total squad of 12 also would not provide any rest for the weary. I can’t speak for the six Chester students who don’t play. Kids have all kinds of reasons why they don’t get into organized sports. The closest I got was as a varsity football and basketball equipment manager. Nevertheless, the coach decided it best to end the season while the school still had some able bodies for basketball season. That’s a joke, although I realize a bad one. The result was that the Yellowjackets forfeited its final two games.

The abrupt ending to the season may have left some kids and fans heartbroken but the coach’s decision was both without recourse and smart.

Canceling was smart because had more players suffered incapacitating injuries a whole raft of wrath might have been heaped upon the coach and administration’s head like players scrambling for a goal-line fumble. Society has become less tolerant with the idea of “playing hurt.” And with recent hearings about football brain injuries suffered by NFL players — the pros also being shown to influence youth football safety levels — the idea of “shaking off” an injury seems destined for such discredited medical practices as “bleeding” someone for various illnesses.

One must recognize the difference between traumatic brain injury as well as other potentially deadly and disabled syndromes related to concussions, and the normal broken bones and  dislocations which are common in high school football. Even concussions, or getting one’s “bell rung,” are not unusual. Two Chester players reportedly suffered concussions while the rest of the injuries along with a host of broken  bones and dislocations, according to Beaumont TV station KFDM. The Chester coach called the number of injuries incurred freak accidents.

But even orthopedic injuries these day in football at the high school level have been under scrutiny along with head injuries, all wrapped up under the category of sports safety.

A number of factors bring safety to the forefront of sports in general such as the size and athleticism of youth who workout on weights and some of whom take illicit steroids. Protective sports gear has also improved as has emergency medical care. Some notable cases, however,  exhibit tragic holes in protection from injuries.

The case of Will Benson is a particular example of gaps in safety.

Benson was a 17-year-old quarterback for St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin who died after suffering cerebral hemorrhage during a game in 2002. Benson collapsed and was looked at by the team’s trainer and doctor but no ambulance or emergency medical technicians were stationed on the scene. Problems with the ambulance finding and accessing the patient were reasons almost a half-hour elapsed between the time Benson collapsed and was rolled into emergency surgery.

It wasn’t until 2007 that Benson’s dad was able to convince Texas legislators that sports safety needed improvement and “Will’s Law” was passed among which provisions include a requirement of safety training for coaches and trainers.

I have to admit that I read about Will Benson’s tragic case for the first time today. I suppose I have become somewhat numb following news of kids dying from sports injuries. What shocks me most is that in 45 years of watching high school football I can’t remember seeing  a game that did not have an ambulance standing by. This was even the case back in the day when EMTs — which I was certified as for 10 years — was just another unknown acronym and funeral homes usually operated the ambulances. This is even in the smallest of East Texas towns in which I grew up.

The machismo of the still overwhelmingly male sport of football has long dictated toughness as a rite of passage. One must decide whether such concepts are all they’re made out to be. But as was emphasized in the macho profession of firefighting in which I was involved some five years one can’t help someone in need if you are unable to show up. Translation: Don’t drive like a bat out of hell and all crazy en route to an emergency.

If the logical extension is taken for football, you can’t play if you’re hurt really bad. That can be taken for what it’s worth if logic can be applied amongst the emotional world of football.

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R-word at end — Time for Elephant people to bitch

  My friend, who works for one of those huge, huge corporations which I won’t name, called last night to sing Happy Birthday to me. It’s certainly the thought that counts.

  He said the business he works for was doing very well and I think he even mumbled something like “the recession is over.” I say mumbled, I was having difficulty hearing because I am unfortunate enough to have a two-year T-Mobile contract.

  Lo and behold, today I see signs of the recession having ended. The Associated Press online hed:

 “Economy grows in 3Q, signals end of recession”

 Though described as “sluggish” it is heartening to see the end of something some thought might be a repeat of the dreaded “Great Depression,” or perhaps an ever greater Great.

 Thank goodness that didn’t happen.

 If you remember back toward the end of the (sigh) Bush administration some of the efforts that were taken to stem the tide of this fiscal disaster began with consultation between the incoming and outgoing administrations. So, if this all turns South, it’s Bush’s fault — it is anyway because it started under his tenure.

 You can bet no matter what part the Obama administration played in the recovery, shaky as it remains, no praise will come from the Republicans. That is because they say no to everything. They praise nothing Democratic. Like one of my long ago country pals said as well long ago: “You’d bitch if you had a loaf of bread under each arm.”

 Well, it seems we’ve got more than a half a loaf, so let the GOP bitching begin.