Eight Feet Deep

Some tumultuous moments were apparently taking place a few blocks from where I now sit typing away. An armed inmate took a hostage or hostages about 8:30 this morning at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, but is back in custody, according to the Beaumont Enterprise This news somehow puts me in a funk for you know, rainy days and Mondays and hostage-taking always gets me down. That’s a joke son. I dig rainy days and Mondays can be okay, especially if it’s a rainy Monday. Hostage-taking. Bad.

Hopefully, things are back to normal at the county courthouse and no one was hurt. I can predict with accuracy of plus/minus 12 percent that someone — in addition to the inmate — now has their ass in a crack.

And speaking of crack …

Do you think Rudy’s peeps are smoking crack?

Rudy’s campaign is slamming a New York firefighters union that plans to derail the former hizzoner’s presidential campaign. Just who do those ungrateful union radicals think they are putting down St. Rudy, the man who saved New York all by his lonesome — with a little help from Bernie Kerik, of course — after 9/11?

Nothing like a relaxing day in the water.

Significant weather events such as the flooding that has been taking place in North and Central Texas serve as a very poignant reminder that it sometimes rains like living hell in the Lone Star State. Just remember what Stevie Ray Vaughn said:

“It’s flooding down in Texas/All the rich folks just drowned.”

No, that’s not really what Stevie Ray said, exactly. But you get the point that it can and does come what we living here in East Texas refer to as “frog stranglers.” Is that the point? No, really what is the point?

Well it is that some folks have this preconceived notion of Texas being a vast desert wasteland. It’s not, of course. It’s only a vast wasteland, not a vast desert wasteland. I’m joking, although some desert is found in western Texas such as the Chihuahuan Desert. That is, as many of you are probably aware, where the cute, loveable, ankle-biting Chihuahua dog breed got its name. The dogs were bred to climb down tiny holes to catch desert-dwelling rodents which were used to make a slightly gamy version of carne asada known as raton asada. If any of what I just said is true then I would be sort of surprised because I just made that all up.

But it is true that some people have a stereotype of Texas which they probably got from watching too many Westerns, or “horse operas,” as my daddy called them.

When my Navy ship made port calls in Australia some 29 years ago, several Aussies asked me if I rode a horse. I told them that I did and said I would take them down below into the berthing spaces of my ship to catch a glimpse of “Silverbolt,” however the horse was taking a nap.

Since the world is one big wired-up conglomeration of computer chips and motherboards and fatherboards requiring increasing amounts of dilithium crystals, then perhaps these stereotypes are not quite as widespread these days. (Not to mention that Western movies, as in Old West, are only allowed on cable stations on Saturday mornings).

Nonetheless, I am sure a little of the Texas mystique remains throughout the world these days and shall remain for many years to come. That is, if it isn’t all washed away by floods.

There is mucho weeping, wailing and the gnashing of dientes in the wake of the Senate immigration bill collapsing like a cheap pinata.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has been one of the critics of any immigration reform that would result in what he terms as “amnesty.” Thus he voted against Thursday’s measure.

“Our analysis was that it would result in 8.7 million more people in the next 20 years here illegally,” said the Alabama senator, adding, “There just aren’t that many American power-washing and roofing jobs to take in the additional influx. Maybe the Mexicans should find themselves a new niche like the Pakistanis and their convenience stores.”

CNN’s Lou Dobbs wept with joy when he heard the reform package fails. He is an advocate for rounding up all 12-20 million illegal immigrants in the United States and throwing them out of airplanes over the Indian Ocean. Dobbs said he hopes at the very least that Congress will pass legislation that will fund building a fence made of steel 1-foot thick and 300 feet tall around the entire boundary of the continental United States. Not only does this include the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada but those bordered by oceans and gulfs as well.

Immigration reform is a very big issue in America at the moment. Laura Ingraham said so this very morning on her popular talk radio show “Bludgeon the Bleeding Heart Liberals.”

A caller from Georgia to Ingraham’s show said the immigration problem is causing her to have irregular menstrual periods. Another caller said the influx of brown men and women across the border is responsible for his genital herpes.

It seems that 80 percent of the country is sitting around each day consumed in thoughts of how bad the illegal immigration situation truly is.

Jean Smaltzer, a woman on the street in Anywhere, U.S.A., said the one byproduct of the illegal immigration is that tacos are now the cheapest food in the nation. The glut is causing Taco Bell to give away their tacos. A Taco Bell spokesman said the company plans to concentrate on selling coffee from mall kiosks.

Somewhat of an answer came which was in response to a question I posed to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The online query concerned my friend having to show his Social Security card before his license could be renewed. The kicker was that he was renewing his DL online. Thus a trip to the long lines of the DPS Driver License office in this case rather negates the convenience of renewing online. I had mentioned in my online query to DPS that last year when I renewed my DL online I was not required to show my Social Security.

Here was the reply from Tela Mange, the chief spokeswoman for the DPS:

“Over the past several years, we have been asking folks who are renewing to show their Social Security card if we did not have a record of the number (this is something required by federal law). It’s probable that we didn’t ask for yours last year because we already had it.”

I can’t ever remember being asked for my Social Security card to renew or to make a change of address on my driver license. That is with a driving history of 36 years.

It isn’t that I have a problem with showing the DPS my Social Security card even though that number has been used in records ranging from tax returns and college to it being my “serial” or service number in the military. And it would seem the DPS would be privy to some of these records. The SSN leaves quite a long trail.

Also, it is by no means surprising that such a requirement is a federally-mandated one. “We need to see your papers comrade!”

Of course, Catch 22!

Yossarian: Ok, let me see if I’ve got this straight. In order to be grounded, I’ve got to be crazy. And I must be crazy to keep flying. But if I ask to be grounded, that means I’m not crazy anymore, and I have to keep flying.

This brings to mind my friend Ross’ recent encounter with the Texas Department of Public Safety driver license office in the Dallas area. Ross, who recently turned 44, applied online to have his license renewed by mail, having no tickets or anything else that would otherwise disqualify him.

But here’s the catch: He was told that he would have to bring in his Social Security Card for verification in order for his license to be renewed. Of course, he asked the very logical question: “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of online registration?”

I wrote to the DPS Public Information Office today to ask that very same thing. Don’t worry Ross, I didn’t use your name. I know that last fall when I renewed my license in the very same county the DPS just sent me my license and it showed up in the mail within a remarkable week’s time.

If I receive a reply to my question from the DPS I will share it here in this space. It sounds to me as if such a proviso is required for a license renewal then it might be in knee-jerk reaction to the big immigration hoo-hah. We shall see hah!