Eight Feet Deep

Hillary Clinton leaves us heading into the Memorial Day weekend puzzled over her Robert F. Kennedy assassination remarks.

One would have to possess a deficit of political history not to realize that a “big unsaid” looms over the presidential race especially if Barack Obama is in fact the Democratic nominee. That, of course, is the unspoken worry about harm coming to Obama like Robert F. Kennedy (and Martin Luther King). Simply put, there are people in this country who are so racist and hating of blacks (or other ethinicities) that they would do whatever they could to stop someone of a group they hate from becoming president.

We don’t like to talk about it because it makes us uncomfortable. But as one who was born in Jasper, Texas, and lives 10 miles from the former Klan haven of Vidor, Texas, such worries are inevitable for anyone with a sense of social and political history.

Throughout Bush the Younger’s presidency I have heard the right wing harp on how Gee Dubya has been such a target of hatred from the left of a type the rightist pundits have never seen. Well, apparently they have amnesia because the same rightists hated Hillary and her husband as badly as any political figure I can remember in my lifetime. But I can imagine that the race haters will hate an Obama candidacy as a nominee with a capital “H.” And that really scares the s**t out of me.

Some right-wingers such as Limberger are talking about such a prospect and seem to be whipping up white fright of what the blacks of America might do should something happen to Obama. And such incitement scares me even more.

Let’s just hope Hillary was just using RFK’s untimely death as a point of reference today. And good thoughts, or prayers if you do that, for the continued good health for all of our presidential candidates.

Your hands are getting heavier …

No, someone isn’t getting hypnotized. The fact is my hand, the right one, is heavier today thanks to a cast. The orthopede or orthopod or whomever I have been seeing about my badly sprained thumb decided I should wear a thumb cast for the next month since my injury had not vastly improved. The cast extends around my hand northward from the knuckles so I can type, just not very rapidly. And my hand feels like it weighs a ton. It should prove to be a very pleasant month.

There are a number of reasons I don’t put a lot of stock into magazine lists about cities. Usually such lists are predicated upon factors that the publication or whomever it is making up the list think are most salient when it comes to judging a particular city for various criteria. “Best Life,” published by Rodale who also puts out “Men’s Health” and “Backpacker,” shows the folly of creating such lists with its “Best 100 Places to Raise a Family.”

Now I would never claim my city, Beaumont, Texas, as Nirvana. It’s a funky place with a lot of refineries and big, tough mosquitoes. But I have lived here three different times and feel that it has its particular charms. I have been in a number of American cities where I would not want to raise me much less a family, so I can’t buy “Best Life’s” contention that Beaumont is the second-worst city in country.

The hit on Beaumont is over its “long-standing air-quality challenges,” according to the article.

Sure, this area has had some long-standing air-quality challenges. And sometimes the air doesn’t smell so great although the cause is usually the Evadale paper mill about 20 miles or so north of here. The air quality here in Beaumont could be better but it has greatly improved since I first moved here 30 years ago. In a blog post a few years ago when I moved back here from Waco (Number 5 worst city), even the state Sierra Club chapter’s air guru said great strides had been made to improve air quality here.

I am not sure what makes Waco the Number 5 worst city in the country but after living there for 7 years, I know why I think it is not such a hot place to reside.

On the best side, the magazine puts Plano, Texas, ahead of Mobile, Ala., San Antonio and Fort Worth, which are all pretty cool places to be. So go figure.

I am sure people who like a place will find a reason to feel offended by the list if their city is listed in the worst category as mine is. Vice versa with those who a particular locale. So what does it mean? Nothing really. I am sorry to waste your time.

Slate.com’s Robert Bryce writes that $4 for a gallon of gasoline is a bargain.

While acknowledging that higher gas prices are damaging the domestic economy and hitting the lower income folks like a 90-ton s**t hammer, Bryce lays out the case that when you look at past prices and inflated dollars gasoline costs only 20 percent more than 86 years ago.

Bryce also points out that environmentalists should be glad because paying more for gas is the only way to bring the true change needed to reduce hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. Then, he too, makes that disappointingly cliched argument that gasoline is higher elsewhere in the world than here in the U.S. of A.

“American gasoline is also dirt-cheap compared with gas in other countries. British motorists are currently paying about $8.38 per gallon for gasoline. In Norway, a major oil exporter, drivers are paying $8.73. In 2007, out of the 32 industrialized countries surveyed by the International Energy Agency, only one (Mexico) had cheaper gasoline than the United States.”

That argument has always struck me as faulty because of the driving habits in the U.S. as compared to certain other nations, not to mention that our country is so huge with places like Texas where it takes almost a day to transverse.

Bryce does make a pretty good case for gas prices being sky high but that doesn’t help Schmoes like us who have to rub two nickles together — or adjusted for inflation, one dollar coin, a quarter and three pennies — just to get by.

Down here in the refining country of Southeast Texas where I live, no one has to be told that petroleum makes the world go around. Shipping all kinds of good from here to yon normally requires some kind of petrolene and you don’t need to be an economist (nor play one on television) to know that when gasoline goes up in price likewise do goods reliant on gas or diesel to get those goods there.

Therein lies the problem. No matter what is the explanation or rationalization du jour, petroleum-driven inflation is causing a hurtin’ for certain in this country and no one seems to have the foggiest idea about measures to help ease the crunch.

So yes, gasoline should’ve been higher priced all along. I should have been a millionaire long ago and married to a loving woman who today still looks like a beauty queen. But reality is reality and someone or some ones with brains ought to start figuring out solutions other than those which will get them re-elected or elected or, as in the case of big oil execs, filthy, stinking rich.

Today I didn’t have to go to the office until 11 a.m., or so I thought. Actually, I found out I wasn’t supposed to work today, or tomorrow either for that matter. If I had looked more closely at my schedule I could have had a six-day vacation. Of course, I actually do have six days off but I am not using them in a block insofar as those days being used in a constructive manner.

But it is a beautiful day outside and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to work. So, I think I’ll just go enjoy the rest of my day and use tomorrow for my writing gig. Stop me if you heard this one before.