Flotsam and Jetsam - Riverboat's Blog

Flotsam and Jetsam - Riverboat's Blog - Victoria Advocate http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat Observations on education, politics, and random topics Observations on education, politics, and random topics en-us 2008 All-Star game http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/8105 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/8105 Whew! Is it over yet? FIVE HOURS and fifteen innings later, the American League extended its winning streak to eleven games, not including the TIE game that our feckless baseball commissioner Bud Selig permitted in 2002. It was game of firsts, and a historical last. It will be the last All-Star game played in the House That Ruth Built. But it was also a game that set a record of men left on base and stolen bases. In a game this long (actually ten minutes shy of five hours) there were bound to be lots of web gems. Several players got tagged out in close plays at home, except, alas, for the last AL player who missed being thrown out at home by inches, if that much.  It was a live-action version of hanging chads. Tampa Bay made up for years as the MLB doormat team with a rookie player, one of three Rays players in the lineup. Maybe dropping the Devil in front of Rays was a good idea after all, although being the Angels didn't help Anaheim.  The Astros were represented by Berkman and Tejada. Had the National League won, I'm certain Tejada would have been named MVP of the game. But when Lidge stepped on the mound at the bottom of the 15th, I had a feeling the game was about to end. Call it a hunch. With fifteen - count 'em, fifteen! - Hall-of-Famers gathered together on the infield, I was touched to the core watching the crowd go wild when Yogi Berra was introduced. It made up for the nauseating spectacle of Yankees players kissing the ass of that sawdust Caesar, George Steinbrenner. political conventions http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6997 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6997 <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">There are a lot of things I’d rather be doing on a Saturday morning, but I elected to attend the Victoria County Republican convention. Why not? It’s not far from here, and I’ll have a front-row seat at America’s greatest spectator sports- democracy in action. </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The weather is blustery but cool enough to wear a dress shirt and tie. I chose a long-sleeved red cotton shirt and a Tabasco tie. If Texas is a red state, I may as well dress the part. The meeting is held in a historical building downtown – the Old Cigar Factory. I like the political incorrectness of the name, and the antique charm of the building itself. But on a day like this, one must bow to modern innovations like air conditioning. At the very least, someone ought to know where the damned thermostat is, and how to turn it on. </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Upon arrival, I write my name with a Sharpie on a sticky-tag and pick up a list of resolutions. I peruse the list as I sit in one of the few seats available. The resolutions are acceptable. Yet, I can’t help noticing that in there is an elephant in a roomful of elephants. Amid the list of recommendations and exhortations, there is no mention whatsoever of the war in Iraq. Are we for it or against it? How long should we stay? How much more money and lives are we willing to commit to that troubled region? Are we going to follow the lead of our representative Ron Paul who vociferously opposes it, or the presidential nominee John McCain who is determined to stay as long as deemed necessary? </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">One of the delegates seems a little out of place. She’s dressed for the national convention, or the queen of the Fourth of July pageant at the Retama Nursing Home. She’s wearing a blouse and hat of blue and white sequins. Unfortunately, her contribution is not limited to her colorful outfit, but her colorful and sporadic outbursts. </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">There’s always a squabble over some ancillary point of order that eats up 15 minutes of a meeting full of people with strong opinions. On this occasion, an uprising of Young Turks consumes a full two hours over who gets to be the permanent chairman of the meeting. After a flurry of motions, seconds and whereases, a meeting area that was expecting twenty delegates becomes a hotbed of delegates caucusing with their precinct members to cast secret ballots for who gets to be King of the Fire-Ant Hill. </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">That’s it. Two contentious hours were consumed with who got to run that meeting. Well, as one delegate was overheard, it was a shot across the bow. I wasn’t unsympathetic toward the uprising. The county has been lacking conservative leadership, but why squabble over who gets to run a meeting? The Turks should have conserved their firepower over who gets to run the county for the next two years. </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">BY 12:30, the ceiling fans are turning faster, and – mirabile dictum – someone found the thermostat. Looks like I can keep my shirt on after all. </div> What I Hate About Geraldo Rivera http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6880 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6880 I’ve been a Fox News viewer for many years. The Beltway Boys, Hannity and Colmes and Bill O’Reilly are regulars on my list of must-see TV. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I expect some controversy along with reporting, but not a circus sideshow. Imagine my utter disgust when Geraldo Rivera became part of the lineup of correspondents. My contempt for this eel reaches back to when he hosted a show which was a a cross between Jerry Springer and 20-20. He was interviewing - goading, actually - a hooded votary of the Ku Klux Klan. I actually rooted for the Klansman when he klobbered that smugly face on national television.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I knew that sooner or later, Geraldo Rivera would screw up his latest gig. Not long ago, Rivera had divulged sensitive information regarding military maneuvers in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. He took a well-deserved shot. It wasn’t to his head, nose or hair, but his reputation as a reporter, which is like a marksman taking a shot at an overinflated dirigible. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Recently, Rivera managed to stoop even lower. Anna Nicole Smith has been dead for months, but our intrepid reporter unearthed more footage of her painted in clownface, mumbling nonsense to a camera, as if we expected forensic declamations from a woman with a pair of fire hydrants covered with lycra who married up – WAAAY up – to a kajillionaire oil baron who needed a walker to go to the bathroom three times a night. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I was suddenly moved to write a poem. As a rule, I avoid writing poetry, satire being my natural medium. The last time I wrote a poem was in high school 30 years ago for a girl I never saw again. I'm hoping to repeat that success with this poem about<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT GERALDO RIVERA<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> I hate his blow-dried wavy hair.<o:p></o:p> I hate his beady Machiavelian stare.<o:p></o:p> I hate his phony rugged stance -<o:p></o:p> When danger comes he wets his pants!<o:p></o:p> I hate his mustache and proboscis<o:p></o:p> Which sticks out like a Polish sausage.<o:p></o:p> I hate his dimpled lantern chin.<o:p></o:p> I hate his Cheshire cat-like grin.<o:p></o:p> I hate each feature of his face.<o:p></o:p> In journalism, he's a disgrace.<o:p></o:p> I hate his arrogant demeanor. <o:p></o:p> He's just a trench-coat media preener.<o:p></o:p> I hate him more, as you can see,<o:p></o:p> Than Hillary, Bill and Ted Kennedy.<o:p></o:p> And now I hate Fox network brass<o:p></o:p> For hiring this pompous pain-in-the-***.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Killing Daylight Saving Time http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6862 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6862 This is the time of year I'm reminded of the raw power of the federal government's ability to steal anything, including time. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the idea, but his proposal was intended as satire. That's the problem with irony - people who should know better take you at face value, and pretty soon someone in Congress is trying to pass a tax on items with too much fat. The Victoria Public Library has a book about this issue - Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Times by Michael Downing. So help me, not only did I check it out and read it, I took notes.  In 1916, the British parliament was preparing a Daylight Saving law. Britain’s Royal Astronomer tacked on a snippy, humorous amendment: “And let it be further enacted that between the months of October and March the thermometer should be put up ten degrees.” If you like DST because you get an extra hour to putter about the yard, I can respect that. But the reasons put out by most DST adherents don't hold up. Here are some items I saved from the book. You can find all this on page 142. I'm pretty sure it's available for checkout, so don't take my word for it.  “Most industry analysts concluded DST a losing proposition. . . The superintendent of schools in Mercer <st1:placetype w:st="on">County</st1:placetype> told the NY Times, 'We use up much more fuel in the coldest part of the day, early morning to get the schools ready to open.'” <st1:state w:st="on">Florida recorded that eight </st1:state>schoolchildren were killed during the first month of DST. A spokesman for the Florida Education Department told the NY Times that “six of the deaths clearly attributable to the fact that children were going off to school in darkness.” <st1:country-region w:st="on">In Georgia, a </st1:country-region>pickup truck hit an eight-year-old boy waiting for a school bus; I<st1:state w:st="on">n California</st1:state> during the first three weeks of DST, five school-age children were killed in predawn accidents; <st1:state w:st="on">Ohio</st1:state> and S<st1:state w:st="on">outh Carolina</st1:state> both reported two deaths of school children. At a Congressional hearing held in August 1974, it was reported that ten states had reported increases in traffic fatalities involving school children. When Congress pressed the Department of Transportation for an analysis of the effectiveness of DST and the conservation of energy, the response was that there was “no appreciable reduction in consumption of gasoline, a possible increase in consumption of heating fuels.” In other words, DST has been a resounding failure as an energy conservation method. Plus, it's just damned dangerous, at least this early in the year. If they want to go with DST, fine, save it for summertime. What do I care then? Time has no meaning for me for at least three months out of the year. In Memoriam: William F. Buckley http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6773 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6773 One of the nicest things my wife ever did for me, besides letting me give her my surname, was to obtain tickets to see William Buckley debate John Kenneth Galbraith here in Victoria. The topic was Resolved: That Ronald Reagan Should Be Reelected To a Second Term. He was a towering figure for me, encompassing all the qualities I wanted to imitate, the laconic polymath with a happy talent of decimating his opponents with satiric barbs like fishhooks that hurt more pulling them out that going in. I became a Buckleyphile as soon as I discovered National Review. When I learned that the founder of the magazine also had a talk show on PBS, I began watching Firing Line regularly. From then on, most of my reading consisted of writers and authors mentioned/featured in his publication and show. He was my touchstone for politics, literature, philosophy, vocabulary, and even the Church. He made the defending the Church, Western Civilization and the American Way of Life easier for the rest of us because he articulated volumes of information with erudition and passion. Not only that, he gathered about him other towering figures and gave them a platform. Reagan defeated Communism, and we owe a great deal to him for that, but we also owe a great deal to Buckley as well for educating us on a fortnightly basis about the true nature of that Workers' Paradise conceived in Hell. I saved a little article from one of those issues that I want to pass along here. It made me roar with laughter then, and still does. Q: Mr. Buckley, your supporters regard your style as epideictic, gnomic, perhaps even profluent, or perspicuous. Your detractors, however, might contend that your approach leans toward the pleonastic, periphrastic, or euphistic and, in any event, is obstruent to luculent communication. How do you feel about that? Buckley: I’m not sure what obstruent means. [Michael Rose interviews William F. Buckley 3/4/83 – National Review] Jerry the Hairless Ewok http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6291 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/6291 Jerry Jones, Jerry Jones, When the Cowboys lose he sits and moans. That pipsqueak Jerry Jones.<o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Let's give credit where credit is due. The Cowboys lost only three games in regular season, which is testimony to the ability of the head coach. They made the playoffs for the first time in over ten years. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> During his entire career as the owner of the Cowboys, Jerry "I'm so short I can tie my shoelaces without even bending over" Jones reverted to his habit of pretending he knows more about coaching than the head coach, chasing off the new guy, and WHAMBAM! sending the team back to the basement, giving the whole world irrefutable proof that he's a %*#  and a &@# as well as a &%**. (I cannot restrain myself myself when I talk about that runtified contemptible clown. He just begs for the opprobrium.) <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Poor Jerry "My Head Is So Big It Shows Up On Radar As a Dirigible" Jones must have been frustrated. He stayed in his box seat, on top of the Dallas/Ft. Worth directories, long enough to let the game run its course, but we all know that Jerry "I'm Often Confused With Ross Perot" Jones was itching for a chance to interfere with the head coach. <o:p></o:p> <o:p> </o:p> Imagine my delight when the cameras caught his scowling mug that said, "Who am I going to fire first to slake my thirst for revenge! Who is going to be the first to feel the wrath of my self-righteous indignation! Who is that over there that DARES to wear the blue and silver colors for which I paid MILLIONS and keep a stable of lawyers to guard against copyright infringement! Why, it is my own HEAD COACH! He must have done this on purpose to slight me!" <o:p></o:p> Well, we'll all know by the end of this week. Dollars to donuts Jerry "Get Your Ears On, Good Buddy" Jones will fire SOMEONE. Maybe he'll even find a way to blame Jessica Simpson because the starting quarterback was too preoccupied with her. Beautiful! http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/5780 http://community.victoriaadvocate.com/home/Blog/Riverboat/5780 The recent announcement of the retirement of VISD financial officer Marilyn Thomason reminded me of something I had written several years ago and never got around to submitting. I figured now is as good a time to share it. *** I always keep a bottle of hooch handy before I read anything about the school district in our newspaper. I get jittery, but lately I'm not sure if it's because of the news itself, or the effects on my liver. I’ve been in this district, and reading the Advocate, and drinking rather steadily for 23 years now. <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Anyway, back to my point. Some of the comments from our administrators make me cringe, or furious or both. But sometimes I get lucky and read a comment that is laugh-out-loud hilarious. If you didn't read the Friday edition, today is your lucky day, because I'm going to write it out for you. If you haven't already used the paper to put the kitty poop you scooped out of the litter box (I call it "panning for gold" only it smells different), the article is on page 2A (“Victoria schools get rated as acceptable”). </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ready? </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Halfway through the article, the paper reported, "After the master plan discussion, the board approved and accepted the VISD comprehensive annual financial report. </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">"Chief Financial Officer Marilyn Thomason described the report as BEAUTIFUL and . . . " The rest of the article became irrelevant. I wet my pants laughing, and had to go wash up afterward. </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Babies are beautiful. So are sunrises and sunsets. I prefer the latter, but I'm not a morning person. Concertos by Mozart, tulips and roses, the Dutch Masters (paintings, not cigars), the Grand Canyon and Angel Falls, and the list goes on. But a financial report? </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Well, we all have our pets and our perceptions of the world. When man maketh things of his own doing, it seems natural for him to step back to admire his handiwork like God after the Creation, and see that "It is Good." So why shouldn’t accountants, mathematicians and other number-crunchers become effusive over something like this? I might even say the same thing about this report after I finish it and read it in the Advocate.  </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div> <div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Still, the Devil is in the details, as they say, and I’m keeping this bottle handy because when I find out what’s actually IN that master plan, I have a feeling I’m going to need it. I’m getting jittery already.</div>