Eight Feet Deep

For some reason or the other I thought Bill Clinton was coming to our fair town yesterday. Instead, he is here right now. Or, rather, he was just speaking across the street from the Beaumont (Texas) Public Library where I now type this. I hadn’t intended to see Bill. But walking up to the library I saw a big crowd and a few of the local TV satellite trucks with their antennae up. And I heard the unmistakable omnipresent hoarse voice of Mr. Bill, so I said: “What the hay?”

I didn’t hear Bill speak for very long. In fact, the best I could make out of his message was that we should all vote for Billary, er, Hillary. And I suspect that would have been his whole message no matter how long I had been there.

Although I don’t loathe Bill Clinton like some I don’t particularly care much for him either. That is mostly because “Sleaze” seems to be part of his political personna. But he is a very charismatic man who happens to have been elected twice as president of our country. So, in the words of someone, somewhere: “That’s something.”

Also, it’s kind of nice taking a walk in your fair city and seeing a major historical/political figure speaking somewhat unexpectedly and having the ability to take it in. Somehow that is my ideal of our democratic system of government. Whether it has anything to do with reality or not is a horse of a different color.

Bill, most notably of power couple Billary, was supposedly in our fair city today campaigning for the “illary” part of Billlary.

“President Clinton is coming because Beaumont is a very important part of the state, and both President Clinton and Sen. Clinton feel that it’s important to reach out to as many Texans as possible, ” said an e-mail sent to the local “Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise.”

Apparently the Clinton campaign felt important was too important a word to be left out of an important press advisory during an important presidential campaign in an important nation on an important planet that is part of an important solar system. Whew!

This important visit by Bill was to be held at Carlito’s, a popular Mexican restaurant that is in a neighborhood that has a high Hispanic (and thus important) population. I’m sure old Bill got his fill of salsa, chips y frijoles before he left.

Meanwhile, the important main opponent of the important Clintons gave a slight nod to the importance of our area last night when Barack O’Bama (Provided he wants to claim he is Irish) appeared on a local TV news show via satellite. Barack was also appearing on several other TV stations elsewhere in Texas. This is a phenom where government officials or politicians help provide the impression that the local TV station or newspaper is somehow “important” enough to rate an interview with the likes of some famous official. This is not unlike a phone conference I once had with about 10 other Texas newspapers reporters and then Attorney General Janet “Dancing Party” Reno.

Such Tom Foolery. It’s enough to make you proud to be an A-mehr-i-can. And that’s important don’t you know?

One thing which can definitely be said for a federal government job — even a part-time one such as mine — is that it provides a lot of holidays. I am glad today is Presidents’ Day because I stayed up kind of into the late hours of the night or morning with a friend whose name I will not use to protect her reputation as an upstanding member of the community. Yeah, kind of like me, that’s why you only see me using only my nickname or the ubiquitous EFD.

Presidents’ Day is, for those of you who don’t know or care, the day that cheapskate R. Milhous Nixon combined in 1971 to consolidate the birthday holidays of George Birthington’s Washday and the Birthingham of Lincoln Abeday. Putting the birthdays together for one holiday might make economic sense but it surely sinks to the lowest levels of skinflintedness (if that’s a real word — if not, it should be). That would be like putting the birthdays of Jesus Christ and the United States of America together for Christmas on the Fourth of July. Or why the hell not just put Easter and Thanksgiving together and we can dye and hunt colored turkey eggs already?

Friends, the fact is we need MORE, not less holidays. Here are a couple of my suggestions:

Jerry Garcia’s birthday
The birthdays for all present and former members of the Doobie Brothers
Celebration of the invention of nail clippers
Make Festivus (Festivus for the rest of us!) an official celebration on Dec. 23.
The 2nd, 3rd 5th and 6th of July as well as the 4th. Or just the 1st-7th of July and we’ll call it Freedom Week.
National Blue Tail Fly Day (Traditional day of singing “Jinny Crack Corn”).
Marilyn Monroe’s birthday

And I could go on and on …

Just a few quick observations before I start the weekend.

The bigger they are the worse they fly

I just read about Continental Airlines and AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, talking about a merger. That can’t be good, as Delta and Northwestern also appear to be headed toward a union. I have already seen Continental’s customer service on a slide since I first flew with them eight years ago. My flight back from Washington was dreadful, complete with a “seat tango” before taking off and having 15 people jostle me while they stood waiting for the toilets after the movie was over. I called them yesterday trying to get a receipt for my flight so I can get reimbursed and they said since it had been “so long” (a couple of weeks) it would cost me $20. Paper is expensive, you know.

Scary stuff

The story about the Navy planning to shoot down a dying, toxic spy satellite is like something out of the movies. I sure hope the government is not lying again — not just about the shoot-down being some test to kill other nations’ satellites but about everything. I haven’t heard a lot about what could happen if the vessel hits a populated area. But something falling from outer space can’t be really good for you.

Dems “grow a pair”

At least that is how it seems after congressional Democrats are blocking the Bushies’ attempt to forever do away with the constitutional strictures on searches without warrants in the foreign surveillance bill. But with that whole bunch in Congress, they are likely to sell the Constitution down the river anyway. We can get thousands of our young men and women killed for “freedom” in Iraq but we can’t be secure in our own homes because of those lawless bastards in the White House.

Rocket and ‘Roid Rage?

A lot of folks in my area of Southeast Texas are talking about the Roger Clemens/Andy Petitte testimony in Congress. The only thing I have to say is to be consistent. If you are going to slam ball players for “cheating” by taking steroids then lets have equal outrage for the New England Patriots cheating by videotaping the other side’s coaching signals. Even no less the likes of LaDanian (L.T.) Tomilinson, (Waco University High School, Texas Christian University and all-Pro with the San Diego Chargers) as straight an arrow there is, according to accounts from people I have known who have been around him, admits the type activity which the Patriots were involved in is not exactly rare in the NFL. Cheating is as cheating does.

Have a great weekend.

Now that Texas might be of significance in, at least, the Democratic race for presidential nominee, I seem to have lost interest. I don’t know why that is. Maybe I have finally overdosed on the incessant 24/7 “horse-race” coverage everywhere in the media world. God knows there are mornings after I am awake and am watching CNN that I crave for a good old scandal or world crisis or whatever. Unfortunately, when news rises to such a level it usually has to do with dead people and, after years of chasing car wrecks to fill an ever-hungry news hole, I am not really up for that first thing in the mornings much anymore.

Jack Shafer, whose Slate media critiques are more reliably than others of his ilk on the mark, recently acknowledged the depth of campaign coverage can be overwhelming with what I thought was a very on-point analogy:

“Even political news gluttons must feel as staggered by the surfeit of coverage this campaign season, as did the proverbial Soviet émigré the first time he wheeled a shopping cart into a 1960s Safeway. The big difference is that today’s news supermarket is a 24-hour Wal-Mart with miles of aisles instead of a few manageable choices.”

Da.

Despite such surplus of campaign news and analysis, Shafer goes on to say, the media (large “M”) are actually doing well what it ideally should be doing in a society such as ours. That would be, simply put, giving the public information which may help them make some semblance of an educated opinion before drawing the curtains and pulling the lever. It is up to the public, of course, whether the lever is one on a voting machine or on a one-armed bandit although sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference.

So perhaps by the time the March 4 primary rolls around in my beloved Lone Star State I will have self-generated a little more excitement about the election once again. If I still have a deficit of enthusiasm by that time, it certainly won’t be because I didn’t have a chance to give the candidates a careful going-over.