Eight Feet Deep

When the history of the human race is finalized, if ever, one wonders where the whole USB port thing will rank up there? If I had a vote it would be pretty damned high.

Otherwise known as “that little rectangular hole in the back or side of your computer” the USB port makes so much possible it would inspire serious, or seriously bad, poets from far-removed centuries to pen verses aplenty. Too bad they didn’t have laptops back in the day.

In fact, I think a great invention would be a computer that would serve as nothing but one big host for hundreds of USB cables. Those cables could run your entire house, your entire life for that matter. Why not wireless? Why not indeed.

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This is a strange story, the one about the Indiana financial manager who sent a Mayday from his plane, apparently left it on autopilot and jumped parachuting to the ground. It reminds me of a verse I really like from an 80s song by Tony Carey called “It’s a Fine, Fine Day:”

“Then one day Sonny stopped comin’ around
Heard he’d gotten himself into a little trouble out in town
Sometime after that he finally disappeared for good
Then he pulled that ol’ Houdini
Like we always knew he would”

It appears the pilot has some alleged fraud complaints against him back in the Hoosier State and he is trying to pull that ol’ Houdini.

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Our local police are having fits with some fellows who apparently talk like Jamaicans and pull home invasion robberies and/or burglaries in the UMC neighborhoods. TV station KBMT had this hed on its Web site:

“Beaumont Police Seek Armed Bandits”

It just makes me wonder: If all of these robbers just happened to be missing arms would the television station have a headline reading:

“Beaumont Police Seek One-Armed Bandits?”

It irks me just a bit that since all the furor has been raised about the detention facility for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo, the name in the media has become synonymous with the prison.

The Barack Attack (I haven’t settled on a nickname for him just yet — oh yeah, he WILL get a nickname. He doesn’t get a pass just because he is a Dem.)is preparing an order to shutter the compound housing suspected terrorists at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba. I figure most people — regardless of how they feel about what all closing the jail entails — know what Obama’s reasoning is for such an order so I won’t go into that whole can or worms.

But all along the media has talked about the facility and the uproar over it saying calls have come to “close Guantanamo.” That makes it sound like people want to and the incoming administration will shut down the Navy base lock, stock and watch towers put up to keep out the Commies. I suppose people will say it is just understood that people know to separate the detention facility closing from the base continuing to operate. But one positive thing pounded into my head by editors during my career was that people don’t understand everything. In fact, many people don’t understand anything at all. It (the phenomenon that many people don’t understand anything at all) is called the “dumb-ass factor.” That is not to be confused with the “O’Reilly Factor,” which is a reactionary show hosted on Fox (We Lie Our Asses Off) News by Bill O’Reilly, who is an ass, makes an ass of himself quite regularly and often makes very dumb-ass remarks.

Here is a history of the naval base, how the U.S. came to have and keep a navy base in Cuba and the whole ball of wax. Sorry for the cliches but I am a bit tired.

Okay, I’ve said my piece, now the media will stop what they are doing and start explaining the difference between the navy base and the detention facility. I’ve saved the world again. Then, I woke up.

Poor Sarah Palin. Everybody hates her. Nobody loves her. Well, at least that’s the gist of an interview the Alaskan governor and Republican Veep choice gave to conservative talk-show host John Ziegler. Some clips of said interview are on You Tube and generating a little talk today.

With a tub full of sour grapes, Palin expects that the media will treat Caroline Kennedy different than her. Never mind that Caroline isn’t officially running for office or has been appointed to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat in the Senate. (And that’s a big seat to fill!)

Likewise, Palin bitches and moans about her interview with Katie Couric which as far as anyone knows wasn’t done with a gun to Sarah’s head.

We’ve all heard this before. Blame the media. Being an obscure, right-wing U.S. governor who is ill-prepared in more ways than one to be vice president much less president certainly has nothing to do with it. Suck it up, Palin. If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay off the porch.

Now I will be the first to tell you that the right to file a lawsuit for alleged wrongs is part of what keeps civil society in check. But then there is a limit …

The local legal newspaper Southeast Texas Record reports that a lady sued a Beaumont doctor, alleging that the doctor’s rudeness caused her to have a heart attack in his office.

Now I have to say that, providing the doctor is a competent one, one might think a doctor’s office wouldn’t be the worst place to have a heart attack. I mean it definitely beats having the big one in a doctor’s office than, say, washing windows on the 92nd floor of a high rise.

It turns out that the plaintiff previously sued an attorney claiming “he verbally assaulted her with sarcasm,” according to the Record. Hmm. I thought that was just the nature of attorneys. She also sued President George “Gee Dubya” W. Bush and numerous housing officials alleging she might be forced into homelessness because of purported mismanagement at the Beaumont Housing Authority.

The story indicates the plaintiff also suffered “CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT” (heavy on the cruel and unusual punishment) because the doctor would not complete a handicapped accessibility form for her to use on the local transit system.

In addition to unspecified monetary damages sought in The Case of the (allegedly) Discourteous Doc, the plaintiff demands the physician go through psychoanalysis. Talk about your cruel and unusual punishment!

No longer does a reason exist for one’s failure in having some little morsel of small talk next time they find themselves at a social gathering. If ever you thought to yourself: “I just can’t find anything interesting or even uninteresting to say at a gathering” then just fire up the old *Internets and go to one of the Google News pages in a language you can understand.

That is what I did this afternoon and found that the most popular baby names for 2008 in New Zealand are — ta-da — Jack and Sophie. As a matter of fact Jack, Jack is the top baby name in the “English-speaking countries,” according to the New Zealand Herald. The article points out that Jack is number 1 in Australia and Britain although it acknowledges Jacob is the most popular boy’s name in the U.S. (Actually, Parents.com claims Aidan is the most preferred U.S. boys’ name.) Canada wasn’t mentioned, so I guess the Kiwi newspaper just pretends Canada doesn’t exist, sort of like some people here in the U.S. do not believe Canada exists.

The article doesn’t go into any hard and fast analysis of why Jack and Sophie are the most popular names although it admits Jack, which had “until this century” been used as only a nick name, had a “hard and crunchy sound” which makes it more apt as a name for a cereal than for a little boy. Imagine the creepy slogans:

“Eat Jacks and Wonder Where the Little Kiwis Go!”

The most popular girl’s name does seem to differ a bit depending on where one goes. Ella is No. 1 in Western Australia. Lena is tops in Luxembourg (Noah is the ultimate boys’ name there.)

Parents.com also listed Isabella as the top choice to name U.S. girls in 2008. Whether that or any else of the above is true, don’t hold me to it. I just read it on the Internets.

*Internets — What about to be former President George W. Bush called the Internet one time and will likely be ridiculed for it the rest of his life, just so all you foreign readers out there know.