They seem too big and slow to fly but they do and those of us on the Gulf Coast are grateful that they do.

I never really thought that much about what the planes were doing or where they were going. Nor did the fact that I only saw these planes fly so languidly when I hung out on a hot summer day with my friends provide a clue as to the aircrafts’ missions.

It was an Air Force-looking plane and it took off from Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. I was a 19-year-old sailor stationed with the Seabees some 10 miles away in Gulfport. Since the planes were flying from an Air Force base, I figured they were up to Air Force things.

I knew, back then, that a lot of different activity went on at Keesler. I got my first pair of glasses — black, horn-rimmed ones which several later would look cool if you went for the Elvis Costello look – at Keesler because the dispensary at the Seabee base didn’t have an opthamologist or even an optometrist.

My homeboy, Jonathan, who lived with his first wife and then-baby girl over in Biloxi, attended air traffic control school at Keesler during a hitch in the Air Force. After I got back from Sea duty, one of my office subordinates on the ship transferred to Keesler to attend Chaplain’s Assistant school even though he was in the Navy.

But only years later would I figure out that those huge, slow planes that I saw at some time during summers on the Mississippi Gulf Coast beach were so important to my life when I decided to be a p’ert-near coast resident.

Those planes I saw, but didn’t know or particularly care what they were for back then, were Hurricane Hunters.

The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler fly the WC-130s, or Lockheed Martin WC-130J Hercules if you want to get technically anal about it, into tropical systems to detect vital information which helps hurricane forecasters determine what a storm might do and where it might go. Often the Air Force Reserve crews manning the aircraft will fly right into the eye of a hurricane. You might think “calm” when talking about the eye until you remember you have the hurricane surrounding you.

This is one of those days, today, you might see one of these big slow planes take off and ever so slowly climb up into the sky over the Mississippi Sound and its barrier islands. A National Hurricane Center advisory around noon Central Daylight Time indicated an Air Force reconnaissance plane was approaching a low pressure center between Grand Cayman and Honduras. The NHC has given the system an 80 percent chance for tropical cyclone development.

Of course, the cable news media is all over the possibility of a storm like a gecko on an insurance commercial. That is because of the massive BP oil spill that continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico and onto land from Louisiana to Florida.

My most not-favorite CNN anchor, Rick Sanchez, was making much ado about this not-even-tropical depression and the hurricane “models” which are already predicting paths for what could become the first named storm of the season. If it be comes a tropical storm it would be named Alex. The weather woman on CNN is at this moment as I write this saying which model would be “preferable” as for where the storm may go. She means what would be the best track for the storm, if there is a storm, as it might affect the oil spill and limit subsequent damage, if there is damage and if there is a storm. That is truly putting the dog before the pony show. The reason is that the models of where this storm might head currently extend from Tampico, Mexico, to Apalachicola, Florida. That’s a lot of ground, uh, water to cover and it includes the area in which I live.

In just the last five years I have been through three hurricanes, a tropical storm and four or five evacuations, if you count all those folks who came to this area from Hurricane Katrina until being chased away by Hurricane Rita. If I left out a storm, I apologize.

Don’t get me wrong. I am concerned about the BP gusher as I have been for awhile and not just for the oil-covered pelicans although I hate to see the environment f**ked up. But I am likewise concerned for my neighbors here on the Upper Texas Coast. That is why I am glad those building-sized, puzzling slow Air Force-looking planes I used to see when I was a young sailor are out there flying with confidence in the Gulf of Mexico hunting hurricanes. The information that those airmen out of Keesler gather is important to a lot of people and probably more folks than usual — because of the BP spill in the Gulf — await what comes from the storms that the Hurricane Hunters risk their lives to investigate.

Here is another look from AccuWeather about possible Alex paths.

This Boston Globe Magazine article goes into the mind of those who constantly comment on, in this case, news stories. But I would suspect a lot of comments that you get on blogs are by people such as those you will meet in what is a very good, although fairly long article. (Duh, it’s a magazine article!)

None such stories of the day are as important right now to those pampered pundits though. No, the No. 1 burning question around the White House at the moment is who will get Helen Thomas’ chair?

If you will remember, crotchety old Ms. Thomas resigned as a columnist with Hearst a few days ago because she said some PI (politically incorrect) things about Jews and Jerusalem.

Because the 89-year-old news hen (Thanks to Dan Jenkins’ marvelous “Fast Copy”) was the longest-serving member of the Washington press corps she was awarded with the seat in the middle of the first row, directly in front of the podium. (And I always thought she sat there because she was too short.)

Fox News supposedly wants it. I suppose their correspondents cannot aptly insult the president or his flacks without seeing them close up.

That’s fine with me if Fox gets the vaunted chair. In fact, I really don’t give a damn who gets the chair. I remember covering presidential events in Crawford as a “local pool” member. We weren’t supposed to touch the catered breakfast worthy of a five-star New York hotel although I sometime did anyway. And in the White House press room, the supposed crème de la crème of the nation’s journalist worry about who is going to get the chair. After their rich breakfast of course.

All the great food you can eat, a good seat in the briefing room and just tons of self-importance too. What more could a journalist ask for?

Surely a .50-caliber revolver promised as a “hunting handgun for any game walking” could take care of that screwed up Fujitsu tablet PC I have to use that often acts as if it is on a continual fortified wine bender.

I even started out using Apple’s Macs.

But I don’t have an iPod. Maybe that’s why I don’t get the significance of the iPad.

I do understand what the new tablet does and it’s relatively cheap price starting at $499 instead of the expected $1,000. It apparently combines the technology and operation of Apple’s iPod, computers, e-book readers and cell phones. Smart, functional, relatively inexpensive and delivered by a genius of a man who survived liver cancer after getting a transplant. It’s a hell of a story, no doubt.

What it isn’t, is the Second Coming of the Almighty. The headline on Huffington Post this afternoon took up half of my laptop screen.

Maybe my lack of enthusiasm stems from becoming computer literate only in my 30s and 40s. Or, as I said, maybe it’s because I don’t have an iPod. Some pundits remarked that they believed the iPad announcement would overshadow President Obama’s first State of the Union address this evening. Go figure that one.

Now if someone came up with a computer that was really functional it would be a different story. I’m talking an android-in-a-box. A computer that would make meals or snacks for you that were both delicious and perfectly healthy according to your dietary and taste bud needs. If it mixed your adult beverages just to your specifications. If it was a computer that could pull up the five-shot .500-magnum and do a Dirty Harry imitation in the event unwelcome intruders were in your abode. If a computer was introduced that was just completely out of this world in its functions, would heal the sick, feed the starving, stop global warming and save the whales, then yeah, 72-point headlines and perhaps an extra edition if newspapers are still around.

But the iPad, the little-bitty tablet PC that mystery and hype has even me talking about it, I just don’t understand the hub, Bub.

But that is just what the tragic and ultra-destructive earthquake in Haiti did to “Negrogate,” the furor over the slip of the tongue among friends that was never meant as a malignant comment. Look even on the Web page of the most politically polarizing cable news network, Fox, and you don’t see anything about Harry Reid on the main page — or at least I didn’t this afternoon. There are hardly any political stories on there at all. It’s all Haiti, where it rightfully should be.

The all-Harry-Reid-beating-all-the-time has stopped, for now. That is even though the stupidity of “the message” has become all politics. It has to have political polarization or it is not on cable news, at least. But such stupid stories haven’t always been limited to party politics. Remember Chandra Levy?

I have mentioned here before but I think it is worth mentioning again the worst “sort-of-true” prediction I ever made.

In August 2001, when Gee Dubya was out cutting brush all day on the Crawford ranch, not much was in the news. That is except for the Chandra Levy-Gary Condit story.

During that time I was sitting in a holding room at an airport in Waco awaiting Air Force One’s arrival. I forget the occasion. I was among a group of reporters and news photographers who were waiting to be screened, mostly for the photographer’s camera equipment, by the Secret Service and the then ATF. Our conversations ended up on the Chandra-gate, I mean no disrespect to the murdered woman, but the story did not merit the media’s shock and awe it was given.

One news photographer, predictably from CNN, said he thought the Levy story was a great one. I said I thought it was a dud, but I added, “It will probably stay as the lead until someone crashes an airliner into the Empire State Building.”

We were just journalists talking. We engaged in gallows humor and idiocy because of what we’ve experienced or because we were just a bunch of geeks. Never did I ever imagine something similar as I predicted would happen in less than a month. I really did feel bad about making that comment after 9/11.

In reality, the Harry Reid story is even less compelling, and certainly even less dramatic and interesting than the Levy story. Reid was being just like I was among those geeks in Waco. He didn’t mean anything by it. But for good measure and the sake of the black vote, Reed apologized and President Obama said “de nada.”

The semantics of the Senate Majority Leader’s verbal faux pas — sorry I didn’t mean to have to chi-chi foreign words so close together — are about the only thing interesting in this whole mess. It’s not like Reid used the “N” word, or as the little ol’ white ladies I grew up around used to say politely, “Nigra.” He didn’t even say “colored.” If some blacks are offended, I’m sorry. But if they are, I think they could more constructively put that upset toward being used by the Republicans to  put one more hole in the Democrats’ big tent.

I am no Harry Reid fan. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi. I would rather see decent Democrats elected than both of those whatevers. But sometimes I just wish stupidity could be abolished, at least just for a little while. Maybe it can be put aside to help some folks, mostly “of color,” who are hurting really bad in Haiti.

 Here is what we know according to the three local TV stations and one daily newspaper here in Beaumont,  Texas. A 60-ish Hispanic man was allegedly acting erratically inside a store at Parkdale Mall. He was supposedly banging a shopping cart repeatedly against a wall or door. (windows?) something inside the store. Police arrived at the scene around 9 p.m. last night and found a crowd had formed and the man had — in cop-speak as relayed by the young reporter – “displayed” a knife. Twice after the man “displayed” the knife at police officers, the cops shot him and the subject of the incident was soon pronounced dead at Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital. The officer who shot the man, still yet to be identified by police, is on administrative leave.

 Now all of the above tells me a little, but the individual reports from the Web and watching the news last night left me wondering and wanting more information. I’ve worked a number of homicides during my years as a reporter and the first omission I see in these news reports were a lack of witness quotes or sound bites. I realize the incident happened just slightly before the 10 o’clock broadcast and most likely around the newspaper’s nightside deadline. But one station, Fox-affiliate KBTV4  has a 9 p.m. broadcast and its studios are in opposite sides of the mall from the Sears store. Their reports were less than illuminating.

 I try to give my local media the benefit of the doubt most of the times. I know what a difficult and mostly thankless and pitifully paying job theirs’ is. But I would guess most every reporter who covered this story, at some time, shops at the mall. They go there when they want to get “man on the street” interviews. And also something that is important to me and should be important to the local media is that a cop shot and killed someone with a knife. Was it, as cops sometime say, “a righteous” shooting?

 Also, one remark by a reporter last night appeared to give the police much more than the benefit of a doubt when she said that after being around police it is known that if they or others are threatened “they respond as they see fit.” I really take issue with that statement. First of all, it absolves the police of any wrongdoing even before the shooting review begins and probably before the body of the dead man is cold. It leaves the impression that police are always justified to shoot and kill in every situation.

 So-called “police-involved shootings” (more cop speak), are never clear cut. They are even less so when a knife is involved. I have witnessed a standoff between police and a knife-wielding individual. I also have viewed a video in court in which a man with a machete was holding police at bay in his home. In both instances, the men involved were arrested without any injury. This was in a different city and in one where I worked as a reporter.

 Forget the old saw concerning journalists collecting the “who, what, where, when, why, how.” Some of these are more important than others and some of the others can be collected when wrapping up. And forget that time is slip, slipping away, at least until it starts feeling like a bad gas pain. The 10 p.m. broadcast is upon us. The deadline might run past 10 but not much more or  it could start cutting into the newspaper’s profit. Yeah guys, I know you have deadlines. But you could have had sound bites or quotes from people who might have seen something rather than strictly basing your story on the local police spokesman. Even if they string yellow crime scene tape from the Sears store all the way to Highway 69.  It’s amazing what you can do when you are under deadline. That’s why press associations and other organizations award journalist for best deadline reporting.

 Now for the follow-ups. The editors will want follow-ups until they make the public sick watching or reading them. So how about having some real information in them? Why did the officer shoot the man outside Sears? Was he justified? Did the officer have non-lethal alternatives even though he was justified? What kind of knife did he wield? The mall has unarmed security. Did they respond? Could they do anything other than call for police help? Why was the individual who was shot allegedly acting erratic? Does his family or friends know why? What was the man like in everyday life?

 These are some of the questions that I would like to see answered. The local media in Beaumont did a very poor job, at least in my eyes, of covering the shooting of this man at one of the city’s most prominent places and during the time of the year in which it is the most thick with people. I realize there are many different factors why they may have fallen short in their coverage. Still, this one could have been a whole lot better.

 Hopefully, the follow-ups will be much improved because a lot of folks want to know what happened. I want to know.

 First off, Afghanistan and the upshot of President Obama ordering 30,000 additional troops into whatever it is we are fighting over there.

 Flip a coin. Heads, you approve of the additional troops. Tails, you disapprove. That is how I look at the announcement of additional forces. I initially thought we should have gone into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Today, I’m not so sure. The only thing I am sure of is that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. That war is what one might call unjust, not to mention illegal. I haven’t heard it called “Bush’s Folly” or “Shrub’s Folly,” but it should go down in history that way.

 If the search and destroy mission for Osama bin Laden and gang should  not have been a federal criminal investigation — with help from the military and CIA — many of the troops and material poured into Iraq (not to mention the billions of dollars) could have went to Afghanistan.

 I guess the American in me believes that we should find some kind of victory both in Iraq and Afghanistan and leave. We need to figure out what it is we are there to do because I am not sure what our goals are now in those countries.

 As for Obama sending more trooops to augment the more than 70,000 already there — and the allies sending 5,000 more to help the almost 40,000 NATO and other foreign forces in Afghanistan — I say: “Let’s see if it works out.” He has offered a timetable, albeit a seemingly short one.  So if the situation doesn’t improve by whenever it is Obama wants a withdrawal to begin, then we get mad and jump up and down and say: “Bad Obama. Bad, bad Obama.” This seems as good as anything else I can imagine.

********************************************************

 Next subject. Le Tigre. El Tigre.  Ang Tigre. The Tiger.

 Tiger, Tiger, Tiger.

 Why is the mainstream media doing stories on what was, initially, a rather odd car crash involving Tiger Woods?  Do viewers and readers of the media have such uninteresting lives that they MUST know the details of all the indiscretions of this sports (sports?) star? I have the most uninteresting life  imaginable, at least at the moment, and I don’t care about Tiger Woods” intimate moments. Let me be a bit more specific. I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S RECTUM ABOUT THE TIGER WOODS SCANDAL.

 Tiger Woods has not been elected to greatest golfer in the world or highest-paid sports star in the world. We do not own Tiger Woods. He has no obligation to tell the public zip. Sure, every star of every kind blames the media when things start to go South. But if anyone has a case against the media, this time it is Tiger Woods.

 It makes me both angry and sad to see great newspaper and broadcasting outlets report the latest on this scandal. Why don’t they report something really earth-shaking, like this?

 Even though I very much like what I am doing, my job, or jobs actually, are nowhere near one of those considered the best in the country, according to CNNMoney.com. The online business magazine has listed what it considers the 100 best jobs in the country based upon salary, quality of life and job growth.

 I did a quick inventory of all the full-time and part-time jobs I have had since leaving high school 35 years ago. Compared with many who are perhaps 10 years or so older than I am, I imagine I look like a prize-winning job hopper.

 People used to have jobs and stay with them until they retire. These days, not so much. One major reason for job hopping today is because the company wants you to go so that they may restructure or self-destruct or whatever. Still, I have had six full-time jobs if you count the Navy, and my four newspaper jobs along with my current (struggling) career as a freelance writer as one job. I have also had four part-time jobs including my present one working for the government.

 Not one of the jobs I have or in which I have ever been employed are listed on that top 100 list. Here is a quick run-down of what I’ve done:

    Assembled boxes in a chicken processing plant. Whee!/Navy administrative/clerical worker/Professional firefighter (worked part-time for awhile moving mobile homes. Eeeeeh. and also had a part-time EMT job)/Regional EMS planner/Apartment maintenance worker/Vacuumer at car wash/part-time editor of monthly music magazine/Worked three part-time jobs — short-order cook, bartender and secret shopper (Dairy Queen detective)/Mental health worker/Journalist (editor, reporter, freelance writer)/part-time government job.

 It really looks worse than it is. Actually, when considering percentages, 82% of 35 years working have been with three jobs, providing you count the different stops I had as a journalist as one, and I do. But none of my jobs, as I said, were on the top 100 CNNMoney list. Well, it doesn’t matter. None of the jobs I held were what you call “money makers.” But I have spent 57% of my adult working life as a journalist, which is what I wanted to “be when I grew up.” Oh well, I got what I wanted to be while not necessarily growing up. So be it. And the two worst jobs: moving mobile homes and assembling boxes in a chicken plant. It takes a special breed for those jobs and I suppose I am a breed apart.

 I have said in numerous job interviews, and it is only partially blowing smoke up the interviewer’s ass, that while some might look negatively on my having worked so many jobs I feel that every experience I ever had helped me do the next job better.

 Speaking of longevity, I read in Elise Hu’s blog on Texas Tribune that long-long-time Associated Press photographer Harry Cabluck was one of those unfortunate few who were laid off yesterday during that wire service’s personnel purge.

 Hu notes that Harry, 71, was in the motorcade when JFK was shot in Dallas. He has been based in Austin for many years. A ton of tributes are being collected in Hu’s blog for Harry.

 I don’t know Harry well. I only was in his space twice. Once we talked for a few minutes on the floor of the Texas House of Representatives while waiting on something or the other. The other time was quite a bit longer.

 Harry and I were among press covering something at Fort Hood. He had left his car at the southern end of the post and we were up at the northern extreme. I gave him a lift and was entertained by Harry along the way. What I remember the most was his talking about some cohort or acquaintance of his — that and it was about a 20-minute drive and I really needed to use the bathroom. Harry said either the cohort or both of them used to spend time making up stories about people they would see — total strangers – while they were driving along. Harry gave some really funny examples while we were driving and, well, you had to have been there. I’m sure Harry doesn’t remember that although I understand he has a pretty good memory. I, however, do not.

 Best of luck to Harry Cabluck in his future.

 But the legal action I am talking about is one that could help erase the scourge that cheapens modern mass communication and raises the nation’s stupidity quotient. That would be hateful and libellous open comments on articles published on the Internet that are written by anonymous correspondents.

 The case involves a Kentucky attorney who is suing Kentucky.com, owned by the Lexington-Herald Leader. A person using a screen name allegedly made defamatory comments against this attorney. The lawyer is defending a man charged with murder and violating a domestic violence order. The attorney says she just wants the real name of the person who made the comments so that she may take further legal action. She is, however, seeking unspecified damages plus those for pain and suffering.

 The editor of the paper said the person making the comments was banned from the site and that the comments were removed. The paper is contacting that person to see if they want to invoke their rights to anonymous free speech.

 Lest you think I may show some hypocrisy here supporting other forms of free speech but not anonymous free speech, rest assured that I am not. But there are defamation laws and libel laws. That I know for sure and even though I may not like those laws when they are misused against me to dig into deeper pockets, I feel those statutes are there for long-held principles against bearing false witness against one’s neighbor.

 My agreement with this suit is for much less loftier reasons though. I simply am sick and tired of seeing a bunch of racist, ignorant, idiots dominate these comment boxes, saying what they want about whomever or whatever most often without facts to back them up.

 What is even worse are newspapers and other media platforms that use sites clumsily disguised as not a part of that media outlet which are used to start or build upon controversies employing subtle, but incitable material. See: race baiting.

 Newspapers, especially, should reflect the society that surrounds it. But papers should also mirror the respectfulness and good manners that are at the core of a civilized society.

 I don’t wish for any financial ruin for anyone in the aforementioned lawsuit. I also hope it don’t lead to judicial precedent that would threaten free anonymous speech. Sometimes, that is the only way some people can comment without facing some kind of physical or economic danger. But I do wish such an action could remind those with some sort of a media mouthpiece — be it The New York Times or eight feet deep — that anonymous speech need be responsible speech.

It was something I found distasteful when ink ran through my arteries, to have another news purveyor break a good story. It was also something I tried, at least on whatever beat I was working, not to let happen. But when you have a story that is a relative deep, dark question pit one may have to let the competition jones go for a bit until some mysteries can be solved. A story that is sure to raise some hackles in my neck of the woods is a fine example.

A  man in described by police as “mentally challenged” in Kirbyville, Texas, died of an apparent heart attack while waiting some 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, according to local news outlets. Kirbyville is about 40 miles north of where I live. The ambulance that finally arrived came from Silsbee, about 30 miles away, and belonged to a company that does not even regularly operate in that area.

Now someone waiting on an ambulance for 20–30 minutes is a long time in a city or most suburban areas. However, I am sure there are rural areas in certain parts of the country, even in particular portions of Texas which have to wait even longer. So even though the long “wait” is being focused upon by the local media — and I am not being critical here, rather I am thinking out loud — there are a lot of questions which need answering to make this a much more meaningful story:

1. The story states the Kirbyville chief of police and another person performed CPR on the man before the ambulance arrived. Does Kirbyville have a crew of trained and adequately equipped first responders? I think I know the answer but I’m not sure. I think there are a couple of  volunteer fire departments nearby but how many do first response on medical emergencies? If any do, where were they?

2. Jasper, a city of almost 7,500, is about 20 miles north of Kirbyville. They have at least one ambulance service, or at least they did. How many EMS vehicles are based in Jasper and were they all busy at the time? I don’t know. I wish someone would find out.

3. Was the company operating the ambulance that picked up the victim indeed not operating in its regular area? I’m not so sure about that since it reportedly was an Acadian EMS ambulance and this article says that Acadian was assuming operation of Priority One EMS in Silsbee. The latter company had an air ambulance last time I drove by their headquarters. The former owners of Priority One were recently convicted in federal court on charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and mail fraud, having bilked Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross and Blue Shield out of  almost $1.75 million, by the way.

4. The heart attack reportedly happened at that area’s mental health facility. Does that facility not have a defibrilator? Are they supposed to have one? I don’t know. I’m just saying …

From what I can gather with these sketchy details of the story, the Kirbyville chief of police sounds as if he did quite a job to help that man and deserves praise for his efforts. Perhaps his city might reward him by buying him a defibrillator for his car, at the very least.

Yes, there are a lot of questions remaining, even though tongues are, figuratively, wagging over the length of time it took for an ambulance to reach the victim. But there are plenty of answers still waiting to be discovered such as why weren’t first responders there within a decent time interval with the equipment and drugs that might have kept the man alive and stable? I will leave this up to the local media to answer these questions since I don’t have time, nor do I foresee anyone paying me to solve these puzzles.