UNCORK THE CAMPAIGN!

We are in the midst of the most expensive presidential campaign in our nation’s history. (No, this race is not “the most important in our history etc.” Historically, it’s only sort of important.) Money records will be smashed as the candidates raise and spend millions – no, billions – of dollars seeking jobs that pay a fraction of that.

The question, as usual, is: what’s in it for us? If we don’t look out for Number One, who will? Certainly not those lying, cheating, hypocritical candidates who promise hot pie in the sky and deliver cold pizza in a box. Forget them, what about their money? Who receives all those campaign contributions? Why not us?

Let’s set the scene: In 2000, George W. Bush set the gold standard by raising and spending so much money all the other GOP candidates just melted away in surly silence. W. set a high bar, and Obama cleared it in 2008. This year, we don’t know yet how much money is involved because the bookkeeping is dreadfully behind the times. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is not only toothless but late. It’s still figuring if Truman really beat Dewey by over-spending.

And, of course, there is the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that said corporations are people and thus endowed with free speech rights – and the right to spend as much as they please. Bill Moyers observed, “I have a friend back in Texas that says he’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.” If speech is free, it’s also terribly expensive. Because of the high court’s ruling, super PACs can raise and spend as much money as they want and (the best part) almost anonymously.

This is truly a redistribution of wealth, as the Koch Brothers spend millions on catering, valets, ad salesmen, the little people. Wrong! In presidential campaigns, about 80 percent of the money goes to TV ads. Unless you own a TV station, you might not get a dime. Some of the money will go to Viacom, which owns CBS and whose chairman, Philippe P. Dauman, received $84.5 million last year. Remember that factoid when you make your next campaign contribution.

But there are still some donations left to fight over. For inspiration we take Iowa, please. The GOP primary a few weeks ago chose 1 percent of the party’s national delegates. Should we really care about a minute sample of skewered demographics? We were told we should, as the candidates with their entourage, the press from all over the world, poured into the corn fields and poured cash into the farmer’s coffers. If Iowa can do it, Texas can do it better.

Two steps: First, we have to move up the Texas primary to, say, a week after the January inauguration. No more shall we be an afterthought. We need to be up for grabs and not just a cash cow for funds to buy TV time in South Carolina. We’ll know we are important when we start seeing TV ads for the candidates, sudden visits to our cities, and rallies on the Capitol steps. A political first: they will be spending Texans’ money in Texas.

On the other hand, neither party really wants to blow cash in Texas. We are expensive. Texas is separated into 20 media markets, the most of any state. Former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, who was state director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2008, told The New York Times, “It’s like running a national campaign. There are no similarities between Amarillo and Brownsville and Beaumont and Texarkana and El Paso and Austin and Houston and Dallas. These are very separate demographic groups with very diverse interests.”

That done, we take step Number Two: We need to be a consultant. It requires no training and obviously no talent. Look at Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign staff: “There has never been a more ineptly orchestrated, just unbelievably subpar campaign for president of the United States than this one,” said an anonymous senior Perry adviser.  There’s room for fresh blood.

Perry’s principal campaign committee, RickPerry.Org Inc., reported in October that it had raised $17.2 million in the third quarter of 2011, more than every other candidate in that filing period. Some say they spent most of it. Others think there’s still a bundle of Perry cash in an Austin bank. I believe it’s piled up alongside Mitt Romney’s fortune in the Cayman Islands.

We also have those aforementioned super PACs. Perry’s was Make Us Great Again. The organization had intended to spend as much as $55 million to secure the Republican nomination for Perry, but as of Jan. 13, the super PAC had spent just $3.9 million. Where’s the rest of it?

But our governor was a cheapskate compared to Mitt Romney, the richest person ever to run for president. His worth is said to be near $250 million. Hey, when someone refers to his $374,000 income in just speaking fees for one year (seven times the median family income of $49,445) as “not very much,” he’s rich big time. Now Romney is spending millions and millions of his own money. Did you get your share?

Then there’s Newt Gingrich, who paid his daughter, Jackie Gingrich Cushman, more than $56,000 working for her father’s campaign the past two years. Ron Paul’s support comes in many different forms. In Nevada, the Moonlite Bunny Ranch is offering a special: two bunnies for the price of one if you support Paul. The Bunny Ranch, as you might suppose, is a brothel (prostitution is legal in Nevada). Dennis Hof, owner, said, “We thought real closely about supporting Gingrich, because he’s a cheater – and we love cheaters.”

All this time Obama is just raking it in, ready to out-spend the GOP nominee. Between now and November a few billion will be blown, and that’s where we come in, on either side. We can consult, hang chads and deliver cold pizza in a box.

Ashby consults at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AIR APPARENT

Texas is once more the nation’s leader. No, we’re not talking about the number of children with no health insurance. Texas has long held that first place spot. Or the number of times meetings of our State Board of Education has been likened to a Luddite convention. Nor can anyone argue with our lead among the 50 states in cattle, population growth and executions. We are first in how little per capita our state appropriates funds for the arts (18 cents a year). The right answer? None of the above. Our latest Numero Uno championship is we’re the best state of the 50 for the emission of greenhouse gases. And by a long shot.

A bit of background: It seems the EPA (Energy Police Agency) has just released a detailed map of the U.S. showing who’s polluting our air and how. You should be proud, yet humble, to know that the Lone Star State’s coal-fired power plants and oil refineries generated 294 million tons of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in 2010. That’s more than the next two states — Pennsylvania and Florida – combined. Texas also releases more air pollutants of all sorts than any other state. Why should you care? You shouldn’t, unless you and your children breathe.

Texas, which has 19 coal-fired power plants — more than any other state — and plans to build nine more, is among the few states still adding coal-fired plants. Those power plants accounted for 61 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, while oil refineries and chemical producers contributed 15 percent and 13 percent, respectively. This spurred the American Petroleum Institute to say this data proves beyond a doubt that there is no reason to include oil refineries in any new anti-pollution rules because the refineries’ pollutants only destroy 15 percent of our lungs or 15 percent of the population. Either way, they have a point.

Remember that in 2006 Gov. Rick Perry wanted to “fast track” the construction of 11, or maybe it was 13, more coal-burning power plants, but got slowed down by those nosey tree-huggers who found a friendly judge. I’m not sure what exactly “fast track” means in this instance, but it has something to do with running up the coal-burning plants during a night when everyone is watching “America’s Got Talent.”

Texas also leads in getting screwed by our power companies: In the years after Texas deregulated its retail electricity market, rates have leaped higher than any other state with similar open competition. Between 1999 and 2007, our residential rate rose 64 percent. Before deregulation, Texans paid far less than customers in other states. However, we are first in wind power – until our electric companies figure out how to slap a finder’s fee on gifts from God.

Why should the EPA (Environmental Prohibition Administration) make such a study of greenhouse gases? You are absolutely right: It wants to link emissions to global warming, a theory opposed by Gov. Perry and most of the Whig Party. No wonder the governor, our attorney general and our GOP members of Congress want to abolish that federal agency and spend the money on dirigibles.

Much of the opposition to the EPA is based on a dislike of all regulations at any level, such as stop signs, child-proof bottle caps and zoning. Houston is the largest city in the nation, if not the galaxy, without zoning. Developers say, “Zoning and building regulations would hurt development, growth and, most importantly, our income.” Tell that to Austin, with more regulations on growth and development than the White House Rose Garden. Indeed, Austin’s biggest problem is that so many other people want to move there – mostly from Houston.

This takes us to the state level. We have the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), an agency with the attack-dog ferociousness of a Portobello mushroom. This agency, ruled by appointees of — who else? – Gov. Perry, rides herd on pollution in a state where the children have a poem, “I shot an arrow into the air. It stuck.” We’ve got neighborhoods near the Houston Ship Channel with Gulf breezes you can chew. In Port Arthur, on a clear day you can see your feet. But air pollution is a statewide problem.

Remember the TCEQ (The Committee for Enjoying Queasyness) is the same state agency that commissioned a highly regarded Rice prof to make a study of the sea level rise in Galveston Bay. The prof attributed some of the rise to global warming, so the commission simply took that part out. Eventually the two sides reached an agreement, but it is obvious our Lung Rangers are the gang that can’t soot straight.

As for the governor, a spokeswoman in Perry’s office said all these EPA anti-pollution regulations are “a continuation of the Obama Administration’s assault on traditional American energy sources and the good American jobs they support.” Who can argue with that? There is a growing number of jobs around Texas for EMS staffers plus the makers of gasmasks, eye drops and headstones.

All this time you have been thinking, “I sure would like to see just how dirty our air is so I can flout it to my cousin in Newark.” Go to www.ghgdata.epa.gov and click on

Greenhouse Gas Data Publication Tool. Then you “Choose a State.” I chose Texas, for some reason, and there it is: 68 pages of facilities around the Lone Star State listing what they are pumping into the air we breathe.

David Doniger, the policy director for climate and clean air at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the new web site, “It means that every high school student or local reporter can see who the biggest carbon polluters are in his or her own backyard.” That’s easy for him to say. This local reporter has not a clue what any of those scientific terms mean. It’s just as well. I, personally, don’t want to breathe anything I can’t see.

Ashby pollutes at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

HOUSTON SURVIVED — BARELY

As you will recall, the past two weeks we’ve been looking back at 2011 in Texas and Houston, so let’s hone it down to only our fair city. Records for heat and drought were smashed as “Houston’s Hot” became more than a city motto. 2011 was officially the hottest and driest year in Houston’s history. Wildfires swept across fields and forests in the suburbs, and Memorial Park reported a vast number of trees there are dead or dying.

Parents Magazine rated the 10 best children’s museums for 2011. We’re Number Won: The Children’s Museum of Houston! And Houston was crowned Fast City of the Year by Fast Company magazine.

Red Light District: Mayor Annise Parker gave the green light to the red traffic light cameras, then reversed, then reversed her reversal. The program still may cost the city millions for breaking the contract with the camera company. That’s OK. The city’s coffers are loaded.

Bumper-to-Bumper Crop: Houstonians waited in traffic 57 hours last year, according to the 2011 Urban Mobility Report. That’s equivalent to about one and a half vacation weeks.

City Council members Wanda Adams and Jolanda Jones said they didn’t need to follow Mayor Parker’s mandate and take furloughs without pay to reduce the city’s terrible financial condition. Adams and Jones saved themselves a $1,000 pay cut each by, they said, reducing other expenses. This begs the question: couldn’t they do both? Anyway, Jones was defeated for re-election in a runoff.

Be It Eversole Humble (and Spring): Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole, facing re-trial on federal corruption charges, resigned and pled guilty. The charge carried up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In exchange for the guilty plea and for Eversole’s resignation from office, prosecutors dropped charges of conspiracy, bribery and two counts of filing false income tax statements. He cannot run for office for 10 years, like we need him, and still faces sentencing.

The Casons Go Rolling Along: Socialite Becca Cason Thrash’s name appeared in the Chronicle at least 70 times in 2011, usually accompanied by a photo. Thrash was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in Paris for raising $5 mil for the Louvre.

We all know Houston lost out in getting a retired space shuttle for the Johnson Space Center, but we eventually discovered whom to blame: former Houstonian and NASA director Charles Bolden, who overruled an advisory panel which recommended Houston get one of the space shuttles. Wonder if he’ll retire here?

Radio Active: After KTRH dropped its veteran and professional news team and veered to the loony right, Houston was left (so to speak) without any decent radio news programs. Enter KROI (91.1) FM with some of the old hands from KTRH. Houston. Not all of us are afraid of black helicopters.

In sports, TSU head football coach Johnnie Cole led the Tigers to a 9-3 record, the best in eons, and the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship, then was fired. Something about an NCCA investigation into players who got great grades – in classes they never took. The NCAA stripped the school of 14.78 (huh?) athletic scholarships.

The Rockets didn’t make the playoffs, again. Actually, Houston’s team finished dead last in its division, 18 games out of first place. Yao Ming played five games in two years, then retired. Two of their best players, Shane Battier and Aaron Brooks, were traded, and head coach Rick Adelman was fired/quit. Meantime, the Astros finished with the worst record in Major League Baseball, 40games out of first place, and no help is in sight. None of the Lastros’ minor league teams finished with a winning record, and none made the playoffs.

The Ice of Texas: Houston’s minor league hockey team the Aeros, got to the finals and their coach was promoted to the majors, if anyone cares.

Moving on, at a press conference, Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland probably saved the life of free-lance photographer Tony Morris by administering CPR until paramedics arrived a few minutes later. The chief declined to say if he had also administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Finger Pointing (Left Hand, Right Hand Div.): The DA’s office and the HFD each accused the other of letting Jessica Rene Tata flee to Nigeria. Tata was the child care owner who allegedly left her kids alone to go to the store, when a fire broke out at the house killing four infants.

A Bull Market: The Houston Livestock & Rodeo broke its own attendance record with nearly 2.2 million attendees – 5 percent higher than the 2010 record.

You are now free to move: The merger of Chicago-based United and Houston-based Continental Airlines caused us to lose 1,500 jobs to the Windy City.

The Houston Buffs are gone. No, not our minor league baseball team, but 11 of our small herd of buffalo were moved to a large north Texas ranch. Between the local drought and inbreeding, it was time to move.

Good Nabors Make, well, a lot: Nabors Industries’ retiring CEO Eugene Isenberg received a $100 million golden parachute. This was on top of his $176 million in compensation between 2006 and 2010 during which the company’s stock fell 38 percent. It’s dropped another 20 percent this year.

But our grand winner has got to be MTA chief George Grenias who was suspended for one week and forfeited a week’s pay for using his office computer to access adult sex sites.

Ashby looks backwards at ashby2@comcst.net

GOODBY MISTER CHIPS

By  Lynn Ashby                                    16 January 2012

LAS VEGAS – Over there sits Duc Luc, the inscrutable Vietnamese poker player. Next is Pampa Slim in his trademark cowboy hat and boots. Minnie Mae McQueen, queen of Minnie Mae, is here. Others around this crowded table are the usual suspects – card sharks from every corner of the globe, betting hundreds of thousands as the crowd applauds and the TV cameras keep grinding for ESPN.

Jeffrey Silas-Silas III, the Harvard math boy wonder, beckons me. No doubt he wants my advice on how to double-down his straight jack o’ hearts. He says, with that broad Boston accent, “I’ll have another gin and tonic, boy.” And that is about as close as I get to the big spenders here in Vegas (we riverboat gamblers just call it Vegas).

Sin City, Disney World for adults, Lost Wages, by many names, there is only one Las Vegas because that’s all our economy can afford and is an indicator of the nation’s finances. We must remember people come here for gaming (they never use the word gamble, gambling or bankrupt) after they have paid all their bills, saved enough for their kids’ college education and their own retirement. Yeah, right. In good times and bad, casinos are good, just maybe not as good as before.

Here are the latest figures from last October. The calculating runs a little late because the Mob has to run down – sometimes literally – the deadbeats and card counters. (I, personally, like the Sleep With the Fishes Collection Agency.) In a nutshell, things are looking up — slightly. About 3.42 million visitors came to Vegas last October, an increase of 2.7 percent. Year to date it’s almost 33 million guests, a 4.5 percent increase.

“What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas” is certainly one of the better city slogans, right up there with the “Big Apple” and “Port Arthur – gateway to Orange.” What stays here is the visitors’ money. Last October, just in that month, Nevada had $960 million in taxable gambling revenue, an increase of 8.1 percent. The casinos on the Strip raked in $$560 million. Baccarat broke all monthly records. Nevada took in $65.4 million in gambling taxes, up 8.6 percent for the month. No wonder they have no income tax.

In the mid-1970s, there were 35,000 hotel rooms in town. By 2007, the last time I was here, the boom was booming. Cranes everywhere, with 151,000 rooms (more than any other city in the country), another 11,000 rooms under construction, as well as more on the drawing boards (35,000).

How things have changed. The boom is bust. The Rat Pack is dead. Vegas tried to land an NBA franchise, but the basketball bosses said only if the casinos wouldn’t handle bets on the games, to which the casino bosses said, “Fugetaboutit.” Economists at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas (which offers bachelors, masters and doctorates in hospitality/hotel administration) have warned that Southern Nevada’s real estate market may improve, but not soon. With the decline in housing prices, 63.3 percent of homeowners in the Las Vegas area “have negative equity” (are underwater).

Unemployment improved slightly from 14.8 percent in 2010 to 13.2 percent in 2011, but that’s still one of the highest in the nation. On the other hand, the Las Vegas population is expected to reach 3.6 million by 2050, which is what the Houston area is today.

No major American city has less of a history than Las Vegas because almost nobody lived here until Bugsy Siegel arrived, and he got shot dead for his efforts. Speaking of such matters, this is Binion’s, a casino with a wonderful steakhouse up on the 24^th floor that the locals don’t want the tourists to know about. I heard the maitre d say on the phone, “From 6 to 9 we are solidly booked. As usual.”

The casino belonged to Benny Binion who came here after he was run out of Dallas where, back in the 1940s, he was known as the Mob Boss of Dallas. Benny had five kids, and my father, a pediatrician, would make house calls (there’s a forgotten term) to the Binions. Dad would remark how he’d drive up to the big iron gate and two guys would stop him and peer into his car to make sure he was alone. Dad noted how, even in the Texas summers, these two torpedoes would always wear black overcoats.

Nearby is another Texas connection (this place is full of Texans), the Golden Nugget. It was bought by a Houston restaurateur, Tilman Fertitta (Landry’s, McCormick & Schmick’s, Salt Grass, etc.), who pumped $100 million into the Nugget and helped make downtown Vegas a decent place. It used to be the pits.

I suggest you visit here during the annual Rodeo Super Bowl or officially the National Finals Rodeo. This week the town is full of easy-to-spot cowboys. You can tell they are the genuine thing because none of them wears fancy boots. If you want to look genuine, here’s the wardrobe. Hat is black or pearl gray, no straw and no feather hat bands. Shirt has pearl-snap buttons. Blue jeans are too long so that they crumple at the bottom and the back hem is frayed. Boots are round-toed and rough-hewn. Belt buckles are still the size of a hubcap. The men dress roughly the same way. The rich ranchers wear more pointy-toed boots made of ostrich or leopard or Comanche.

A high school friend became a lounge singer in Vegas. She’d come home about 4 a.m., get up to send her two kids off to school, go back to sleep till noon. One of the toughest jobs in America must be trying to run a P-TA in this town. “We’ll meet at 8 p.m. in the school cafeteria to… OK, 9 o’clock? So 4 a.m. is best?”

Wait. Duc Luc is gesturing for me. He either needs my advice or a light.

 

Ashby is a real card at ashby2@comcast.net

 

LEND US YOUR YEAR

In San Antonio, Ricardo Jones shot an air gun at a restaurant manager, displayed a semiautomatic assault rifle and pistol, then exchanged gunfire with three police officers. Jones drove away, but later held off police during a three-hour standoff at a hotel. Tear gas had to be used to get Jones out of the room. Why? He had ordered seven Beefy Crunch Burritos and was surprised to learn that the price had gone from 99 cents to $1.49.

In Houston, Bridgett Nickerson Boyd‘s car broke down on a freeway, a sheriff’s deputy wrote her a ticket for driving on the shoulder and finally drove her to jail. Boyd, who is black, claims in a lawsuit that the handcuffs were put on her wrists painfully tight, etc. and, worst all, she said she was forced to listen to Rush Limbaugh “make derogatory comments about black people” all the way to the jail. She sued alleging many wrongs, and, for being forced to listen to Limbaugh, intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Yes, 2011 was that kind of year in Texas. So let’s continue with our two-part look at that year’s winners before Texas Monthly steals all our good ideas for its Bum Steer Awards.

The Spies of Texas: Vice Adm. William H. McRaven of San Antonio and UT, where he was a journalism major, masterminded, or led – these guys are so secretive — the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. If he really is William H. McRaven.

Missed: Eunice Sanborn of Jacksonville, Tex., died at the age of 114 – the world’s oldest person.

Longhorn of Plenty: Facing drastic cuts in the UT System’s budget, including higher tuition and fewer scholarships, UT regents hired Rick O’Donnell, a conservative think tank consultant, for $200,000 a year. His job description was remarkably similar to that of Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa. After huge indignation, O’Donnell was fired.

Half Nelson Quote: “I’m gonna let him plead, pay a small fine and he’s gotta sing ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain’ with his guitar right there in the count room. You bet your (rear) I ain’t gonna be mean to Willie Nelson.” – Hudspeth County attorney Kit Bramblett, offering a musical deal to the singer after several ounces of marijuana were found on his tour bus. After his plea proposal went nationwide, Bramblett said he was just kidding.

A Grave Mistake: Reacting to an anonymous phone tip from a woman claiming to be a psychic, local law officers, the FBI and a horde of media descended on a lot near Hardin in East Texas looking for a mass grave containing scores of mutilated bodies, including those of children. Nothing.

Aransas County court-at-law Judge William Adams was taped cursing at his teenage daughter and using a belt to whip her for violating his orders to stay away from the Internet. Adams told a local TV station: It’s “not as bad as it looks on tape.” In the assault trial of oft-seen-on-TV hand-surgeon Michael (“Daddy’s baby girl”) Brown, it was charged that among the objects Brown threw at his wife was Brown’s 2010 Humanitarian Award. He was acquitted.

Double Big Dipper: Gov. Rick Perry is collecting an annual salary of almost $133,000 plus a $7,700 monthly state pension from his earlier state offices. He reported a total annual income of $290,000 including his wife’s salary of $65,000 giving him a net worth of at least $1.3 million. Not bad for a guy who’s been a Texas state employee much of his adult life.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Texas has received at least $1.7 billion from federal Homeland Security to fight terrorism. Local governments spent it on a $21 fish tank in Seguin, a $24,000 latrine on wheels in Fort Worth, and, in Liberty County, grants bought $6,167 worth of dog crates, feed pans and a hog catcher. Others bought Ziploc bags.

San Antonio was named the best-performing city in the nation in 2011 by the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan economic think tank. Houston was ranked 16^th but was Numero Uno among the nation’s 10 largest metropolitan areas. In sports, seven starting quarterbacks in the NFL are Texas high school products. Eight when Vince Young plays for an injured Michael Vick.

Tale of Two Cities: The Houston Astros finished the ’11 season with the worst record in major league baseball, 40 games out of first place. The Texas Rangers went to the World Series – and finished in last place. The Houston Rockets finished 18 games out, while the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA championship. Big D has a great video out touting the city, complete with an address by Mayor Mike Rawlings and a shot of, uh, the Houston skyline.

Houston gave us all sorts of dummy awards. In anticipation of heavy snow, the city of Houston spread liquid magnesium chloride on the streets at a cost of $68,250. Houston got ice instead, along with 800 wrecks and four traffic fatalities.

He Was Framed: This guy appears at the door of a fancy Houston house. He wears a ski mask, gloves and carries a black semi-automatic weapon, demanding money and jewelry. “But wait,” says the owner/victim, “notice that painting on the wall. It’s very valuable.” So the burglar also takes a priceless Renoir, his “Madeleine Leaning on Her Elbow.”

Four people, two of them employees of the International Bank of Commerce in Houston, were charged with robbing their bank after a tip that two of them wrote on their Facebook pages, “Get$$$.” “I’m rich” and “Wipe my teeth with hundreds.” Also, during a high-speed chase demonstration staged by the Houston police for Chinese law enforcement officials, two patrol cars collided, injuring seven people, including five of the People’s Police.

Houston’s State Sen. Dan Patrick, who constantly rails against Washington’s outside interference in state matters (“Austin knows best.”), filed a bill to exempt churches and schools from a Houston drainage fee which had already approved by the voters. It seems Austin knows best.

Next, we take a closer look at more of Houston’s contributions to 2011, while we await 2012 with mixed feelings.

 

 

Ashby wins at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HOUSTON SURVIVED — BARELY

As you will recall, the past two weeks we’ve been looking back at 2011 in Texas and Houston, so let’s hone it down to only our fair city. Records for heat and drought were smashed as “Houston’s Hot” became more than a city motto. 2011 was officially the hottest and driest year in Houston’s history. Wildfires swept across fields and forests in the suburbs, and Memorial Park reported a vast number of trees there are dead or dying.

Parents Magazine rated the 10 best children’s museums for 2011. We’re Number Won: The Children’s Museum of Houston! And Houston was crowned Fast City of the Year by Fast Company magazine.

Red Light District: Mayor Annise Parker gave the green light to the red traffic light cameras, then reversed, then reversed her reversal. The program still may cost the city millions for breaking the contract with the camera company. That’s OK. The city’s coffers are loaded.

Bumper-to-Bumper Crop: Houstonians waited in traffic 57 hours last year, according to the 2011 Urban Mobility Report. That’s equivalent to about one and a half vacation weeks.

City Council members Wanda Adams and Jolanda Jones said they didn’t need to follow Mayor Parker’s mandate and take furloughs without pay to reduce the city’s terrible financial condition. Adams and Jones saved themselves a $1,000 pay cut each by, they said, reducing other expenses. This begs the question: couldn’t they do both? Anyway, Jones was defeated for re-election in a runoff.

Be It Eversole Humble (and Spring): Harris County Commissioner Jerry Eversole, facing re-trial on federal corruption charges, resigned and pled guilty. The charge carried up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. In exchange for the guilty plea and for Eversole’s resignation from office, prosecutors dropped charges of conspiracy, bribery and two counts of filing false income tax statements. He cannot run for office for 10 years, like we need him, and still faces sentencing.

The Casons Go Rolling Along: Socialite Becca Cason Thrash’s name appeared in the Chronicle at least 70 times in 2011, usually accompanied by a photo. Thrash was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in Paris for raising $5 mil for the Louvre.

We all know Houston lost out in getting a retired space shuttle for the Johnson Space Center, but we eventually discovered whom to blame: former Houstonian and NASA director Charles Bolden, who overruled an advisory panel which recommended Houston get one of the space shuttles. Wonder if he’ll retire here?

Radio Active: After KTRH dropped its veteran and professional news team and veered to the loony right, Houston was left (so to speak) without any decent radio news programs. Enter KROI (91.1) FM with some of the old hands from KTRH. Houston. Not all of us are afraid of black helicopters.

In sports, TSU head football coach Johnnie Cole led the Tigers to a 9-3 record, the best in eons, and the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship, then was fired. Something about an NCCA investigation into players who got great grades – in classes they never took. The NCAA stripped the school of 14.78 (huh?) athletic scholarships.

The Rockets didn’t make the playoffs, again. Actually, Houston’s team finished dead last in its division, 18 games out of first place. Yao Ming played five games in two years, then retired. Two of their best players, Shane Battier and Aaron Brooks, were traded, and head coach Rick Adelman was fired/quit. Meantime, the Astros finished with the worst record in Major League Baseball, 40games out of first place, and no help is in sight. None of the Lastros’ minor league teams finished with a winning record, and none made the playoffs.

The Ice of Texas: Houston’s minor league hockey team the Aeros, got to the finals and their coach was promoted to the majors, if anyone cares.

Moving on, at a press conference, Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland probably saved the life of free-lance photographer Tony Morris by administering CPR until paramedics arrived a few minutes later. The chief declined to say if he had also administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Finger Pointing (Left Hand, Right Hand Div.): The DA’s office and the HFD each accused the other of letting Jessica Rene Tata flee to Nigeria. Tata was the child care owner who allegedly left her kids alone to go to the store, when a fire broke out at the house killing four infants.

A Bull Market: The Houston Livestock & Rodeo broke its own attendance record with nearly 2.2 million attendees – 5 percent higher than the 2010 record.

You are now free to move: The merger of Chicago-based United and Houston-based Continental Airlines caused us to lose 1,500 jobs to the Windy City.

The Houston Buffs are gone. No, not our minor league baseball team, but 11 of our small herd of buffalo were moved to a large north Texas ranch. Between the local drought and inbreeding, it was time to move.

Good Nabors Make, well, a lot: Nabors Industries’ retiring CEO Eugene Isenberg received a $100 million golden parachute. This was on top of his $176 million in compensation between 2006 and 2010 during which the company’s stock fell 38 percent. It’s dropped another 20 percent this year.

But our grand winner has got to be MTA chief George Grenias who was suspended for one week and forfeited a week’s pay for using his office computer to access adult sex sites.

 

Ashby looks backwards at ashby2@comcst.net

THE YEAR OF OUR DISCONTENT

By Lynn Ashby                                                       26 Dec. 2011

How hot and dry was Texas in 2011? Wildfires wiped out hundreds of homes and up to half a billion trees. Lakes dried up to reveal cars and bodies. Texans suffered through the hottest June, July and August on record in the United States, according to the National Weather Service. Our 86.8 average beat out Oklahoma’s 85.2 degrees in 1934.

This was also the year that gave us the near-destruction of the Big XII and Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential hopes. The Aggies continued to give us oddball events, and our pols proved Texas has the sleaziest. So let’s take a look at 2011, the Year of the Rat.

Right-wingnut radio talk show host Glenn Beck looked all over America for his new home and radio-TV studios. Where would such a conspiracy-screwball feel most at home, comfortably surrounded by similarly minded people? Dallas, of course.

Prose and Cons: Anthony Graves, who spent 18 years on Death Row for a crime a special prosecutor ruled Graves didn’t commit, was due to receive $1.4 million compensation, but the Texas Comptroller’s office ruled Graves was ineligible because the words “actual innocence” did not appear in the document ordering his release. Other Texas Death Row inmates will no longer have a last meal after convicted murderer Lawrence Russell Brewer ordered up a vast feast including two chicken fried steaks, a cheese omelet and loads of extras – then didn’t eat them.

Texas state Sen. Judith Zaffirini was running for re-election in her district along the Mexican border, but had to change her logo. Border residents were alarmed to see lawn signs with a big jagged Z, a symbol for the Zetas, a murderous drug gang. Meanwhile, the Zetas were horrified that anyone might mistake them for members of the Texas Legislature.

Hullabaloo Disconnect, Disconnect: After a century of being in the same conference with UT and Baylor, Texas A&M split for the SEC. Then fired its coach. Aggie Quote of the Year: “Bring it on.” – Texas A&M Deputy Chancellor Jay Kimbrough, longtime Perry trouble shooter, to Aggie officials who had just fired him. At the time, Kimbrough was holding a pocketknife. Kimbrough later said it was just a joke.

Maroon Is Also a Verb Div: “I have to admit that the stupidity on this board (of regents) always brings me back to the point that I know I’m not the dumbest (expletive) out there.” – Texas A&M athletics chief financial officer and senior associate athletic director, Jeff Toole, written on a fan web site, anonymously, he thought. He also called A&M President R. Bowen Loftin a “putz.” and a “hopelessly underqualfied puppet.”

Goal Finger: Dallas Cowboy Roy Williams mailed a $76,000 engagement ring to former beauty pageant winner Brooke Daniels of Tomball and a recorded marriage proposal. She turned down Williams, a former UT football star, and kept the ring, he claimed. Williams went to court, but finally got the ring back. No word on the romance.

Big D for Disaster (A wardrobe malfunction seems minor): After years of planning and vast amounts of money spent, Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium also hosted heavy snow and ice which canceled flights. Traffic was a dangerous hockey game, and 850 fans were told their temporary seats were not useable because they were unsafe. The unhappy ticket-holders sued. Meantime, during that Dallas weekend, 59 people were arrested on prostitution related charges.

Worst Sports Fans: The boo-birds in Austin who heaped scorn on Longhorn quarterback Garret Gilbert after a couple of incompletions, and the fans were Longhorns! Wonder if they would do that to his face – that face which goes with his 6-foot-4-inch 219-pound body? No matter, Gilbert got hurt and transferred to SMU. We’re doing better at getting a return on our athletic investment: Of the top 100 Texas graduating high school football players this past spring, only 43 went out of state. Usually, we keep just a few of the blue chippers.

In politics, the year began with years – Tom DeLay got three of them in the clink.

From his re-election in November of 2010 until last Sept. 28, Gov. Rick Perry had gone through $762,680 in state funds for bodyguards (read: sherpas) on out-of-state trips. These taxpayer funds were used during a family vacation to the Bahamas and trips made by Anita Perry alone. Just why al-Queda would attack Mrs. Perry in Amsterdam or Madrid isn’t clear.

“Commerce, education and – what’s the third one there? Let’s see. I would do away with Commerce, Education, and let’s see. I can’t – the third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops.” – Our not ready for prime time Texas governor in a GOP presidential debate.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, married to the Clear Channel fortune, is the richest member of Congress, displacing Sen. John Kerry, married to the Heinz fortune. A Texas congressman on the House Financial Services Committee has filed for personal bankruptcy. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, a Democrat, has $2.9 million in liabilities, and nearly $1.5 million in assets. Most of the debt, $2.6 million, is a claim by Wells Fargo Bank. Fortunately for the congressman, his House Financial Services Committee has jurisdiction over legislation affecting banks.

Gentlemen, Start Your Indignations: Five Republican lawmakers from the Houston area — Reps. Kevin Brady, John Culberson,  Michael McCaul, Pete Olson and Ted Poe — all voted to eliminate federal dollars earmarked for National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood. But they voted yes for the Defense Department’s multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with NASCAR racing teams. Lost in Space: Houston didn’t get one of the retired space shuttles for the Johnson Space Center. Instead, NASA awarded them to such space bases Los Angeles and Seattle. Don’t Keep on Truckin’: A Sealy factory officially lost its $3 billion contract to build 23,000 trucks for the US Army.

We haven’t even started yet, so let’s get back together next week and honor the dishonorable before Texas Monthly steals our list for its Bum Steer Awards.

 

Ashby awards at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE YEAR OF OUR DISCONTENT

How hot and dry was Texas in 2011? Wildfires wiped out hundreds of homes and up to half a billion trees. Lakes dried up to reveal cars and bodies. Texans suffered through the hottest June, July and August on record in the United States, according to the National Weather Service. Our 86.8 average beat out Oklahoma’s 85.2 degrees in 1934.

This was also the year that gave us the near-destruction of the Big XII and Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential hopes. The Aggies continued to give us oddball events, and our pols proved Texas has the sleaziest. So let’s take a look at 2011, the Year of the Rat.

Right-wingnut radio talk show host Glenn Beck looked all over America for his new home and radio-TV studios. Where would such a conspiracy-screwball feel most at home, comfortably surrounded by similarly minded people? Dallas, of course.

Prose and Cons: Anthony Graves, who spent 18 years on Death Row for a crime a special prosecutor ruled Graves didn’t commit, was due to receive $1.4 million compensation, but the Texas Comptroller’s office ruled Graves was ineligible because the words “actual innocence” did not appear in the document ordering his release. Other Texas Death Row inmates will no longer have a last meal after convicted murderer Lawrence Russell Brewer ordered up a vast feast including two chicken fried steaks, a cheese omelet and loads of extras – then didn’t eat them.

Texas state Sen. Judith Zaffirini was running for re-election in her district along the Mexican border, but had to change her logo. Border residents were alarmed to see lawn signs with a big jagged Z, a symbol for the Zetas, a murderous drug gang. Meanwhile, the Zetas were horrified that anyone might mistake them for members of the Texas Legislature.

Hullabaloo Disconnect, Disconnect: After a century of being in the same conference with UT and Baylor, Texas A&M split for the SEC. Then fired its coach. Aggie Quote of the Year: “Bring it on.” – Texas A&M Deputy Chancellor Jay Kimbrough, longtime Perry trouble shooter, to Aggie officials who had just fired him. At the time, Kimbrough was holding a pocketknife. Kimbrough later said it was just a joke.

Maroon Is Also a Verb Div: “I have to admit that the stupidity on this board (of regents) always brings me back to the point that I know I’m not the dumbest (expletive) out there.” – Texas A&M athletics chief financial officer and senior associate athletic director, Jeff Toole, written on a fan web site, anonymously, he thought. He also called A&M President R. Bowen Loftin a “putz.” and a “hopelessly underqualfied puppet.”

Goal Finger: Dallas Cowboy Roy Williams mailed a $76,000 engagement ring to former beauty pageant winner Brooke Daniels of Tomball and a recorded marriage proposal. She turned down Williams, a former UT football star, and kept the ring, he claimed. Williams went to court, but finally got the ring back. No word on the romance.

Big D for Disaster (A wardrobe malfunction seems minor): After years of planning and vast amounts of money spent, Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium also hosted heavy snow and ice which canceled flights. Traffic was a dangerous hockey game, and 850 fans were told their temporary seats were not useable because they were unsafe. The unhappy ticket-holders sued. Meantime, during that Dallas weekend, 59 people were arrested on prostitution related charges.

Worst Sports Fans: The boo-birds in Austin who heaped scorn on Longhorn quarterback Garret Gilbert after a couple of incompletions, and the fans were Longhorns! Wonder if they would do that to his face – that face which goes with his 6-foot-4-inch 219-pound body? No matter, Gilbert got hurt and transferred to SMU. We’re doing better at getting a return on our athletic investment: Of the top 100 Texas graduating high school football players this past spring, only 43 went out of state. Usually, we keep just a few of the blue chippers.

In politics, the year began with years – Tom DeLay got three of them in the clink.

From his re-election in November of 2010 until last Sept. 28, Gov. Rick Perry had gone through $762,680 in state funds for bodyguards (read: sherpas) on out-of-state trips. These taxpayer funds were used during a family vacation to the Bahamas and trips made by Anita Perry alone. Just why al-Queda would attack Mrs. Perry in Amsterdam or Madrid isn’t clear.

“Commerce, education and – what’s the third one there? Let’s see. I would do away with Commerce, Education, and let’s see. I can’t – the third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops.” – Our not ready for prime time Texas governor in a GOP presidential debate.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, married to the Clear Channel fortune, is the richest member of Congress, displacing Sen. John Kerry, married to the Heinz fortune. A Texas congressman on the House Financial Services Committee has filed for personal bankruptcy. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, a Democrat, has $2.9 million in liabilities, and nearly $1.5 million in assets. Most of the debt, $2.6 million, is a claim by Wells Fargo Bank. Fortunately for the congressman, his House Financial Services Committee has jurisdiction over legislation affecting banks.

Gentlemen, Start Your Indignations: Five Republican lawmakers from the Houston area — Reps. Kevin Brady, John Culberson,  Michael McCaul, Pete Olson and Ted Poe — all voted to eliminate federal dollars earmarked for National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood. But they voted yes for the Defense Department’s multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal with NASCAR racing teams. Lost in Space: Houston didn’t get one of the retired space shuttles for the Johnson Space Center. Instead, NASA awarded them to such space bases Los Angeles and Seattle. Don’t Keep on Truckin’: A Sealy factory officially lost its $3 billion contract to build 23,000 trucks for the US Army.

We haven’t even started yet, so let’s get back together next week and honor the dishonorable before Texas Monthly steals our list for its Bum Steer Awards.

 

Ashby awards at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

THE ONE PERCENT SOLUTION

            THE CLUB – Ah, there you are. We’ve been expecting you. Take a seat here by the fireplace with its burning Merrill Lynch bonds. Waiter, bring this new member a drink. Now, might I welcome you to the Club One, obviously made up of that select group, the top 1 percent of the richest Americans.

            You were approved for membership by making a billion on Bernie Madoff bobble-head dolls – the kind of heads you can rip off. I made my fortune selling picket signs and bullhorns to those Occupy Wall Street folks. My branch offices in Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Oakland — they all did well, especially Oakland, where fire bombs and gas masks were selling like crack pipes. Unfortunately, my efforts to peddle deodorants and razors didn’t work. 

            Good, the waiter has brought your drink. Thank you, Newt. No doubt you’ve heard about the recession. But not here. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says we top 1 percent of earners more than doubled our share of the nation’s income over the last three decades. Actually, the after-tax income of the top 20 percent now exceeds the income of the bottom 80 percent of Americans, which seems only proper. Incidentally, our “after tax income” is about the same as our “before tax income,” if you get my drift.

Our members are the usual suspects: movie stars, top athletes, drug lords. They made it on their own. Then there are the Wall Street money handlers who don’t actually contribute anything to society, like making shoe-strings or growing corn, but they make a fortune. Oh, there’s Eugene Isenberg, outgoing CEO of Houston’s Nabors Industries. He just received a $100 million golden parachute. This was on top of his $176 million in compensation between 2006 and 2010 during which the company’s stock fell 38 percent. It’s dropped another 20 percent this year. Don’t you just love it?

            Even though we own most members of Congress, many already qualify for our club. There are currently 245 millionaires — 66 in the Senate and 179 in the House. The richest of all is a Texan: Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican of Austin, worth over $294 million. He married it. Most candidates for president, including Obama, are in the top 1 percent. We don’t have exact figures, but experts say Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul probably don’t make the cut. Rick Perry’s net worth is estimated at just over $1 million, which is not bad for someone who has been a Texas state employee most of his adult life.

Yes, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates qualify for our club, technically, but they were drummed out as heretics. You know their screed: keep the death tax, spread the wealth, philanthropy. Traitors to their class. How does one qualify for Club One? Your worthiness can be measured in two ways: wealth or income. By household wealth, the cutoff point was $9 million in 2010, according to the Federal Reserve. The cutoff for annual household income is about $700,000. However, the Congressional Budget Office put the 1 percent earnings cutoff at $350,000 in 2007.  

            The bottom 99 percent deserve to be at the bottom. As Herman Cain said, “I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated, to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks — if you don’t have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!” He’s absolutely right, although I don’t have the facts to back it up.

I see through the window the great unwashed are stoning our club. Looks like an Athens come-as- you-are party. We here at the club believe in the Trickle Down Theory, or as the 99 percent call it, the Trickle On Theory. So? What’s their point? We believe in the redistribution of wealth – upwards, because we are job creators, although lately we haven’t been creating many jobs. So the gap between America’s rich and poor is widening. In the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only Turkey and Mexico have more economically unequal societies than the United States.

            Look at that mob. If it’s class warfare, then we’ve got the class, and we’ll give them the warfare. We should call out the Army, speaking of which, apparently not a single son or daughter of Club One members is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. However, two generals of my acquaintance feel they are doing their part for the war effort – Generals Dynamics and Electric.  

If you paid one dollar in federal income tax from 2008 till last year, you paid more than General Electric, DuPont, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo and Honeywell. A new report from Citizens for Tax Justice – a commie front obviously — looked at 280 of the Fortune 500 companies and found, while the federal corporate tax code ostensibly requires big corporations to pay at a 35 percent corporate income tax rate, on average the 280 corporations paid only about half that amount. Or as Leona Helmsley told her housekeeper, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” Helmsley later went to prison for federal tax evasion.

This 35 percent corporate tax rate is often cited as being second only to Japan’s rate, and should be lowered. As we can see, it already has been. This is like the oft-heard canard: “Half of Americans don’t pay income taxes.” Keep saying it long enough and people will believe it. Actually, the figure is not 50 percent but 43 percent, and they pay lots of taxes directly or indirectly: fees and fines, property taxes, school taxes, sales taxes, taxes on gasoline, pitchforks and torches. Individual income taxes only contribute 45 percent to the fed’s budget. Everybody pays the remaining 55 percent. Just remember, Texas doesn’t have an income tax, but Austin still wrings billions out of us.

Here’s to bailouts and TARP. Cheers. We’ll have another round, Mitt. 

 

                        Ashby is taxed at ashby2@comcast.net

Credit Card Fraud

By Lynn Ashby                                                                        19 Dec. 2011

YA GOTTA GIVE ‘EM CREDIT

 

THE PHONE – “You say you were in Texas last Thursday. But our records show you were also in Illinois. How can you be in two places at the same time, putting charges from the XXX Adult Movie Store in Waco and the Sports Stop in Moline?” the credit card lady asks over the phone.

“I was in the Sports Stop in Waco,” I whine. “Why would anyone want to go to  Illinois?” What has obviously happened is that someone is ringing up charges on my credit account. Again? You may recall a year or so ago someone was going around East Texas running up huge bills in my name and driver’s license number. I figure they got that last info from a casino in Louisiana. Those poker parlors are about the only places that ask for driver’s license numbers.

Then last December someone picked my wallet at a Houston Texans game – the only offensive play the Texans had that day. Now it seems my credit card number is being pushed across counters in the Midwest. Not the card itself, just its numbers. I’ll bet the alleged perpetrator stole the numbers from one of those catalogue companies we use every holiday shopping season (January-December). We charge from Land’s End to the Waikiki Surf & Shark Shop. Somewhere along the way our card number must have stopped in Illinois.

So once more I am forced to change credit card numbers. Not the company, not the password nor address nor anything but just the numbers. The credit account I use, House O’ Cards, is quite efficient. But, like you, I have several companies that automatically put their charges on my card: electric bill, phone bill, ransoms and kickbacks. That requires that I call each one of them and give them my new number. Good luck with that.

“If you want to speak in English, press one. For Spanish, dos, for hrvatski jezik go back to Zagreb. All our agents are busy right now (we have two and one’s home sick), but you can use our options. If you want to pay your electric bill, press 1, if you don’t want to pay your bill, press 2 for a disconnect and 3 for Vito the Enforcer to visit you some night. Press 4 for all other options but there aren’t any.” We can’t speak to people at businesses over the phone anymore. However, when calling the cell phone company, after three hours of pressing various numbers, getting more recordings and being put on hold, I finally got a live person

“Thank you for calling Cellular Dwellers. My name is Howard. Actually, it’s not, but we’re supposed to say that. You told a recording that you wanted to change your credit card number. Why? Maxed out the old one? I see you’re using House O’ Cards. Boy, your credit must be just this side of Italy’s. I’ll need your password, which for us is always Kickapoo. It’s easier to remember if we just have one.”

After an agonizing and unproductive conversation with Howard, who had the IQ of a shovel, I was transferred to his supervisor, who could match wits with a hoe. It was as though no one in the company’s history had ever changed credit card numbers. “I don’t think anybody has ever changed their credit card number,” the supervisor said.

In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau determined that there were nearly 1.5 billion credit cards in use in the U.S. A stack of all those credit cards would reach more than 70 miles into space – and be almost as tall as 13 Mount Everests. How many credit cards do you have? If you are the average cardholder, you have three. The average household has five. Like you, I have cut down on the number, mainly because I don’t need a different card for every gas station. No one can agree on how much the average cardholder owes.

Here’s a sign of the times. Some 29 percent of respondents in a recent survey reported they do not have a credit card. That was a more than 10 percent increase from June 2009. Obviously in this economy a lot of us got rid of our cards. It reminds me of the guy who performed plastic surgery on his wife. He shredded her credit cards. Another reflection of our recession is that credit card use has sunk nearly 19 percent since September 2008, the height of the financial crisis.

College students have long been targets for credit card pushers. Some 84 percent of undergraduates have credit cards, and the average undergrad has $2,200 in credit card debt. Additionally, they will amass almost $20,000 in student debt, mostly tuition. Of the students with cards, about 65 percent pay their bills in full every month, which is higher than the general adult population. Half of college undergraduates had four or more credit cards in 2008.

It got so bad that in 2010 Congress passed a law banning credit card companies from issuing cards to people under the age of 18. If you’re under 21 years old, you need an adult cosigner to get a card, unless you can prove that you have the financial means to pay your bill. Good luck on that point. Incidentally, we’ve been discussing credit cards, but 80 percent of consumers currently own a debit card, compared to 78 percent who own a credit card and 17 who own a prepaid card.

My final call is to the power company before they cut off my electricity.  “Thank you for calling the Lite Light Company. You pressed 76, which is ‘Other.” All our agents are busy with other — other customers’ complaints, but if you’ll just wait for.…”

Finally I get a real person. “Hi, caller. I yam Peggy Sue. How help can I?”

My explanation, plus slow repetitions, lasts 45 minutes. The next day they cut off my electricity.

 

Ashby is carded at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

Scams are Back

Here is an interesting e-mail. “Dear Wells Fargo Customer, You have been identified as a key person to be a participant in our company’s 360 degree feedback survey process.” The message goes on to say how important I am, and if I’ll simply fill out the form, stick in my account number, password and DNA, then W F will send me $50. This same sender will also drain all my accounts, open up my safety deposit box and steal my birthright.

And another: “I am Martin Moussa Ahmed citizen of Libya, and son to Late General Abdul Moussa Ahmed, a very close friend to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Few days before my dad (sic) death he told me that he had deposited the sum of 11.7 Million USD in a consignment box with a security company.” My new best friend Ahmed will give me 25 percent of his fortune if only I will deposit a small amount of cash just to show my good intentions.

Are you suddenly getting a lot of these scams? A few years ago Nigerian princes were sweeping through the on-line world promising a fortune if only we would help them retrieve their billion dollars from a London bank. We can only wonder how many poor, gullible folks bought into the scheme. But now the con artists are back. “Due to the congestion in all Comcast mail users accounts, the Comcast mail team would be shutting down all unused accounts.” In order to re-open my account, I need to send “Comcast” my name, account number, password and shoe size. Wouldn’t you think my carrier would already know all of this?

The Comcast and Well Fargo scams are a step forward in that I do, indeed, use those companies. In the past I have received requests for information from companies I didn’t use. “We here at the Left Bank of the Bayou need to protect your etc…” Never used that bank. Can you stand another example? This one really pushes the e-mail envelope: “Dear Valued Customer, When we detect irregular activity on your Citizens Online Banking account to help us prevent crime, we need to confirm your identity. This means proving who you are and where you live. As part of our security checks we’ll usually ask you for some personal details.” Right, ask me for some personal details.

In addition to these messages, are you getting phone call versions of the same game? The phone rings. It’s a recording: “Hi, this is Rachel from Credit Card Services. We have been trying to reach you. This is our final call. In order to continue using your credit card (they never identify the card service by name), you must re-apply by answering these few questions.” A dead giveaway is the background noise. Scores if not hundreds of Rachels are making the identical call.

Now, we must ponder a few points. First, they – whomever they are – are continuing to run these rackets because they work. I mean, if the pirates of the PCs batted zero, after a few thousand unproductive calls they would turn to some other rip-off, like running for president or selling beer at NFL games for $15 a cup. So the bunko artists must be pulling in some idiots.

Two, exactly who are these idiots who would buy into such transparent phony offerings? I’d love to observe e-mails and phone calls that reply, and see just who is so easily misled. Probably the same people who buy books written by Sarah and Newt. I’d also love to read the complaints filed at the local cop shop from people who kept waiting for their $1 million check from the First Bank of Lagos. “Officer, all they asked for was my Social Security number and combination to my lock box. They said they were from the CIA and it was my patriotic duty.”

Over the years I have been hit up by phone calls from the Texas Deputy Dawg Backers Society (“We do good things for old deputies”) and e-mails from assorted heirs who only need my help to secure their fortune. A twist on this is the London solicitor who represents the late Crown Prince Akmed of Egypt and writes that I have been selected to help etc. etc.

One of my favorites is the Cases of the Errant E-Mail. Out of nowhere I get this one: “Bunny Lou, as you know, I’ve been dating this guy who’s a veep of  MegaMite, and he told me they’ve just landed a $3 BILLION contract with Homeland Security and the stock is going to go through the roof. Keep this to yourself, but buy MegaMite now! See you at the big party for Alfred. Love, Nanci-May.” By shear luck, I have stumbled into a Wall Street insider’s bonanza and shall make a fortune at the expense of the other suckers.

All of these easy-money rackets are based on a single characteristic of gullible victims: They think THEY are the sly fellows, the insiders, and are pulling a quick one on the bank or government or big corporation. Mix this with a heavy dose of greed and reel in the poor jerk.

Wait, a new version: “Hi, I need your help. I made a stealth trip for a short vacation in London, UK. Unfortunately for me, I got mugged at GUN POINT in the park of the hotel where I stayed, all cash, credit card and cell were stolen off me but luckily for me I still have my passports with me.” The urgent e-mail says the writer’s flight leaves in a few hours, “but am having problems settling the hotel bills. The hotel manager won’t let me leave until I settle the bills. I really need your urgent assistance. Charles.” Everyone knows someone name Charles. Wonder how he made out?

There’s a sucker born every minute, which is why I was very careful to only buy 1,000 shares of MegaMite before it went bankrupt.

Ashby is scammed at ashby2@comcast.net

WHISTLING DIXIE

THE MUSEUM – “This is a map showing the North and the South in 1861,” I say, pointing to a large map on the wall.

“Where’s Disneyworld?” I can see it is going to be a most interesting visit to this museum which is currently featuring a large and well-done display of artifacts, maps, guns, photos and everything else having to do with the Late Unpleasantness. I am the Natty Bumppo to my three grandsons, and shall show my unworthy and unappreciative descendants my deep knowledge of American history. “Here is….”

“Abraham Lincoln,” interrupts one of my flock. “When he was assassinated, his wallet contained a Confederate five-dollar bill. The Grassy Knoll Society says this proves Lincoln was a Southern spy.”

So much for my Lincoln speech. We come to a photo of Robert E. Lee. “In 1859, Lee was visiting his family in Virginia when John Brown, that’s him there, seized an armory at Harper’s Ferry and tried to free the slaves. Lee was ordered to arrest Brown, so Lee led a group of US Marines up to Harper’s Ferry and took him.”

“If the US Army was trying to free the slaves and John Brown was trying to free the slaves, why did they arrest him?”

“Let me get back to you on that. Anyway, Lee spent more time in Texas than in the Confederate Army. His last US Army command was at Fort Mason northwest of Austin. He had an astute observation: “We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers.”

“Gramps, you’d make a terrible general. Grandma says you weren’t even a very good lance corporal.”

“Shut up,” I explained. “Now, keep an eye out for a picture of your ancestors, General Turner Ashby and his younger brother, Captain Dick. Known as the Brothers Ashby, they were cavalry officers in the Army of Northern Virginia. No, they were not responsible for Ashby’s Rout and Ashby’s Humiliation. That was another ancestor, Major AWOL Ashby.”

“Did you know him well?”

“I’m not that old. Moving on, here is a display of the POW camps of both sides. Everyone knows about Andersonville, but what about Camp Douglas? It was a Union camp for Confederate POWs on the edge of Chicago. A trolley line was built out to the camp and bleachers set up so Chicagoans could go out and watch the Confederate soldiers in rags behind barbed wire stumbling around in the mud. A class act.”

“Never heard of it.”

“History is written, or not written, by the victors. Next we have this banner which is commonly called the Confederate flag, but actually it is the Confederate Battle flag. You see it displayed by the Ku Klux Klan which is why it is no longer displayed anywhere else, especially on Texas license plates. What’s that? Yes, you can change history. Indeed, a lot of our history is changing. There used to be sports teams, like UT-Arlington, named the Rebels. No more. When was the last time you heard a band play ‘Dixie’? Wonder what would happen today if someone tried to name an army base Fort Hood, Fort Lee or Fort Polk? As Grant told Lee at Appomattox, fugetaboutit.”

“Did the Union Army ever come to Texas, like in a battle?”

“Yes, they attempted to invade from the east, at the Sabine Pass. But a Houston saloon keeper named Dickey Dowling and a bunch of his Irish buddies beat them back in the most lop-sided battle of the entire war. Just think of the outcome if they had been sober. And Yankees took over Galveston for a couple of years, but got tired of the crowds at spring break, and surrendered.”

We come upon a glass case holding medical instruments, and photos of soldiers on both sides missing arms and legs. One lad asks: “Is that where the term ‘disarm’ came from? But nobody says ‘disleg.’ And why did they call the North the ‘Union’ when they never went out on strike?

“You ask too many questions.”

“Why was it called the Civil War?”

“Not everyone did. Your great-great-grandmother called it the War of Southern Independence or the War of Northern Aggression. Of course, she also thought damnyankee was one word. This is a picture of Sam Houston. He wanted Texas, which had only been a state for 15 years and still had the same leaders, to go back to being an independent country and sit out the conflict. Sort of like: ‘You two go ahead and war. We’ll just watch from over here.’ Texas joined the Confederacy, but its draft laws exempted any male who owned 15 or more slaves. Talk about a rich man’s war.”

“What about slavery? It was legal in New York until 1827. Kentucky didn’t ratify the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery until 1976.”

“Next question. Actually, slavery was all a matter of economics. If they could have raised cotton in Boston, we’d never had the war. By the end of the conflict in 1865 the South was more devastated than either Germany or Japan after World War Two. Reconstruction, an ill-fitting word in this case, gave us the expression, ‘Yankee go home.’ It didn’t work. They’re still here, and more are coming every day.”

“What happened to the Brothers Ashby?”

“They were both killed by Yankees.”

“And AWOL Ashby?”

“He, too, was shot….by his own troops.”

 

Ashby rebels at ashby2@comcast.net

RAISE THE GANGPLANK

THE INTERSTATE – Just look at this line of cars. Bumper to bumper. Surfboards tied to the roofs, marijuana plants sticking out of the trunk. Californians, here they come. There is a surge of Left Coast (pardon the cliché) folks moving to Texas, more than from any other state. The Census Bureau reports that more than 363,000 Californians moved to Texas over the past five years. Just in 2010, almost 70,000 of them arrived here. It is not clear how many Texans moved to the Golden State; mostly high school football players like Heisman candidate Andrew Luck (Houston to Stanford).

So you have trouble getting a parking place? Long lines to see your parole officer? I’ll bet you have to wait hours at the ER. That’s because not only Californians are arriving, but so are immigrants from every other state along with the rest of the world. As of the 2010 Census, there were 25,145,561 people living in our state, up 4.3 million since the last Census in 2000. That is a 21 percent increase (I’m rounding off these figures) in 10 years which is more than twice the national population increase of 9.7 percent. For total population growth, it is as though between 2000 and 2010 every man, woman and child in both Los Angeles and San Francisco moved here, and sometimes I think they have.

This is counting not only the immigrants but new-borns, because Texans love to reproduce. Our birthrate is significantly higher than the national rate: 13 per 1,000 people for the nation compared to 15.4 per 1,000 for Texas. Our state’s Hispanic births accounted for nearly half (49 percent) of the state’s 386,096 births last year. Today Hispanics make up 38 percent of the state’s population. The Texas State Data Center projects that by 2040 Hispanics will account for over 50 percent of all Texans, while one-third of the population will be Anglo. Blacks are expected to make up 9 percent of Texas’ population in 2040, and other races (not Anglo, black or Hispanic) are expected to grow to almost 6 percent. Oh, and Texans are younger than the rest of the nation — our average age is below the national average.

This army of newcomers from out of state shows up in different ways. For example, at pro sporting events you’ll see as many fans rooting for the Dodgers or the Bears or the Knicks as you will find cheering for the Texas team. The Dodgers ARE the home team. Ever notice all the LSU and OU bumper stickers and front-yard flags reading Ole Miss, USC and Cornell? Then there are those parents from Ohio or Michigan who don’t want their children saying “Ma’m” and “Sir” to their elders. It’s a Texas thing (or thang), but others feel using such titles is demeaning. And many of these Pilgrims just off the Conestoga can’t understand why their children have to study Texas history in school. “We didn’t have to study New Jersey’s history.” The comebacks for such a statement are too numerous to list, but do you get the idea the Border Patrol is watching the wrong river?

Incidentally, we have not yet mentioned the rest of the world which is trekking to the Not-So-Lonely Star State. An example: among Houston ISD students 84 different languages are spoekn. Almost one out of every four Houstonians is foreign born. No wonder the Bayou City has 87 foreign consulates. Where are these newcomers ssetting up shop? Mostly to the Houston area, the Metroplex and the I-35 corridor (Georgetown-Austin-San Antonio).  No one moves to Pampa. Would. You?

It would be tempting to say, “I’m on board, so raise the gangplank.” But all studies show the vast migration here is going to continue. This, obviously, begs the question to our Yankee put-down artists and eastern media elite: If we’re so bad, why does everyone else want to join us? They’re voting with their feet.

So our new immigrants and new babies are here and will stay here. This means we need more schools, more roads and bridges, more of everything, and more taxes to pay for them. It means our air will only get dirtier, so will our water, which we’re already lacking. And it means our Texas state anti-pollution agencies will have to come up with even more excuses as to why they’re in the pocket of the gods of smog. The good news is that we’re getting four more members of Congress. The bad news is that we’re getting four more members of Congress. The ones we have now are quite embarrassing enough without adding to their number.

GTT of course, is not new. Four Irishmen signed the Texas Declaration of Independence (we had our own), and 100 were listed in the rolls of San Jacinto, comprising one-seventh of the total Texan force in that battle. Eleven Irishmen died at the battle of the Alamo and 14 were among those with James W. Fannin at the Goliad Massacre. Until after 1877, German-speaking Texans outnumbered both Hispanics and Anglos.

At the Alamo the defenders came from 20 states and six countries. There were only 11 native Texians in the mission, all of them Tejanos, while 22 of the defenders just appeared, and to this day no one knows where they were born. At San Jacinto, the Texas Army came from 24 states, 11 countries, and Texas. Again, the only native Texians were 30 Hispanics from San Antonio. (Remember, Anglos were the original illegal immigrants.)

A witness the morning before the battle described the Texas Army: “A scene singularly wild and picturesque presented itself to our view. Around 20 or 30 campfires stood as many groups of men: English, Irish, Scots, Mexicans, French, Germans, Italians, Poles, Yankees, all unwashed and unshaved, their long hair and beards and mustaches matted, their clothes in tatters and plastered with mud. A more savage-looking band could scarcely have been assembled.” Our Californians should feel right at home.

 

Ashby carpetbags at ashby2@compass.net

 

 

 

TOME OF THE UNKNOWN WRITER

Where was I? Oh, yes. Page 2. “Lord Smyth-Smyth will never harm you again, my dear,” young Lieutenant Geoffrey Holcomb-Tarleton, Sixth Duke of Anchovy, said, his muscular chest heaving with desire.

“Don’t say anything, just hold me,” replied Angelia-Mary Westminster-Dowling, her muscular chest heaving with….” This is terrible. So why am I reading it? Because I broke one of my chief rules in the writing biz: I agreed to read a friend’s manuscript which was accompanied by the dreaded command, “Tell me what you really think.” What I really think? As Yogi Berra said, I think I made the wrong mistake, and there is no way out of this predicament. Remember, don’t play cards with a guy named Slim, don’t eat at a diner called Mom’s and don’t agree to read and thereby judge a friend’s writing.

If I tell him the truth, that his efforts are dreadful, I’ll lose a friend for life. If I am an enabler and say it’s a work of art alongside Beowulf, Hamlet and the ingredients list on a Triscuit box, then this poor soul is confident his masterpiece will wind up on the best-seller list. Then he says goodbye to his old job at the pig fat rendering plant and hello to a villa near Nice with days spent writing the next mega-bux winner and nights at the cafe with Grisham, le Carre and Rowling.

My own first brush with book-fate was when a friend was having an operation, and his nurse said she had written her autobiography, “32 Years of Bedpans” or something like that. My friend said he knew someone, me, who wrote – mostly ransom notes — and maybe I could take a look at the book and make a judgment. So I received this brown paper package containing a 400-page typed manuscript. It was dreadful and, silly me, I gently wrote back that particular sentiment. I received a scalding diatribe from the nurse, including, “There must be something wrong with you!”

Yes, there was something wrong with me: I had agreed to judge this person’s life work, her baby. Come to think of it, judging babies and books are much the same. Don’t do it. There are some people who make their wretched living reading and judging books. They are called “editors” or “publishing house underlings” or “masochists.” Each day they come to work and see, piled up on their desk, the next contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The entries come in the aforementioned brown paper packages or boxes or binders with coffee-stained pages that are typed or hand-written in blood. These days we must suppose most author wannabes send in CDs or by iPad or tom-tom. If the work shows promise, the editor can contact the author and nurse him or her along in hopes of giving birth to a baby worth the advance fee. But most are awful and are rejected. Bennett Cerf, editor of Random House publishers, once returned a manuscript to the author with a note saying that Cerf didn’t think the tome would sell.

The author wrote back that he knew Cerf hadn’t read the entire book because the writer had glued two pages together towards the back of the book and, upon its return, the pages were still stuck together.

Cerf replied, “I don’t have to eat the whole egg to know it’s rotten.”

Besides authors in waiting, there are also professional scribes who can make a good living as anonymous ghost writers, giving all honor and credit – but not all the money — to the semi-literate NBA player who makes $4 million a free throw but couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the c and a. And we have the “as told to” or “with” followed by the name of a nobody, which means the famous person whose name and face are on the cover didn’t write a word but sat down in front of a tape recorder and mumbled his life story so an out-of-work English major (is that redundant?) could whip the memoir into shape, leaving out all the profanity, the ya’know’s and drug dealers by name.

If you are working on the great American novel or just spilling the beans on your company’s criminal behavior, there is good news. First, go into any Barnes & Noble and witness aisles of books. Every one of them was written by someone whose work was probably rejected several times. And, two: remember how many authors got insulted, ridiculed and run out of the office before hitting the best-sellers’ list.

One publisher rejected George Orwell’s submission, “Animal Farm” with: “It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.” After John le Carré submitted his first novel, “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” one publisher sent it to a colleague, with this message: “You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.” J.K. Rowling, the second richest woman in Britain behind QE II, submitted “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (later Sorcerer’s) Stone” to a dozen publishers, but was rejected by every one. Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, only took it on at the behest of the CEO’s eight-year old daughter, who begged her father to print the book. We might suppose that the daughter is now the third richest woman in Britain.

As we can see, rejections are a way of life for authors. It goes hand in hand with poverty. One of the editors of the San Francisco Examiner rejected a short story with the put-down: “I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.” Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” was rejected 38 times before finally finding a publisher. And a publisher sent this sent this rejection letter: “Good God, I can’t publish this!” It went to William Faulkner.

Back to the book. “I’m sorry, Miss Westminster-Dowling, but I can’t publish this junk.”

“Don’t say anything. Just hold me.”
Ashby is rejected at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

Regardless of our political feelings, our loony right- or left-wing tendencies, all Texans must pull for Gov. Rick Perry to win the presidency. Why? Money, of course. Is there any other reason? You see, if Perry takes over the Oval Office we will make big bux because of the Defense budget. It alone accounts for nearly half of discretionary spending, and we need to get our share before the vault door slams shut.
Right now there is a lot of loot in the vault. Annual US military spending has doubled since the 9/11 attacks, from $316 billion to $688 billion, with 1.4 million men and women currently in uniform. Even excluding the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the base budget has increased 78 percent in 10 years.
Our baby continues to grow. Last year the world spent $20.6 billion more than the year before on the military. Of that $20.6 billion worldwide increase, how much was America’s share? Almost all of it: $19.6 billion. Who says we aren’t big spenders? Depending upon who’s counting, the US now accounts for between 43 and 49 percent of the entire world’s military spending. That’s more than the next 22 countries combined. Example: We have 11 aircraft carriers, 20 if you count the Marines’ helicopter carriers. The rest of the world has a total of 10, which are one-fifth the size of ours. We’ve still got 268 installations in Germany and another 124 in Japan.
To be fair (and balanced), Texas already gets more than its quota in defense funds. Federal spending in Texas more than doubled over the last decade to more than $200 billion a year. Over the past three years the Army has relocated about 14,000 troops to Fort Bliss, outside El Paso, and plans to permanently relocate an additional 6,000 troops there in the few years. The base proclaims: “Fort Hood is the largest single site employer in Texas, directly inserting nearly $3 billion annually into the Texas economy.” When Johnny comes marching home again from Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve got to make sure Johnny comes to Texas.
We’ve got 17 military installations here, including three in San Antonio, which has reaped roughly $3.3 billion just on military construction from 2006 to 2011. Operating those installations annually pumps hundreds of millions more into the Alamo City’s economy. Defense-related activity accounts for 4.9 percent for San Antonio, but even more, about 5.3 percent, for Fort Worth. Cow Town makes lots of warplanes.
All told, Texas is home to almost 246,000 active duty personnel, reservists, National Guard personnel, and Department of Defense (DoD) civilian workers. Texas hosts more active duty military personnel than any other state — one out of every 10 US soldier is based at Fort Hood — and ranks third in DoD civilian employment. In addition, we have tens of thousands of workers in defense related businesses. In 2010, more than $30.8 billion in defense contract spending was awarded to 13,056 contractors within Texas.
Feeding off the military is an old Texas tradition. Prior to the Civil War, 15 to 30 percent of the entire U.S. Army was stationed in frontier forts in Texas. The US Army logistical routes across Texas were longer than Napoleon’s supply line from Poland to Moscow in the 1812 campaign. Texas was the army’s largest — and most costly — engagement, absorbing up to 30 percent of the annual total operating budget. In the 55 years from Texas’ annexation in 1845 until the turn of the 20th century, the $70 million expenditure of the Army’s Quartermaster and Paymaster was double – DOUBLE — the total value of real and personal property in 19th century Texas.
“The whole state of Texas counts on the expenditure of money for Army supplies, and when a Congressman tackles the appropriations bill he joins issue with the whole state from Dan to Beersheba.” — Dr. Samuel Smith, U.S. Army, Camp Charlotte, Texas, July 4, 1879. This only makes sense. Texas had the nation’s longest war with the Indians – longer than any other state, 50 years.
But we may be in for a tumble. Among the many cost-cutting proposals before Congress is a reduction of the Pentagon’s budget. Our new Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, has been told to cut $450 billion in defense spending over 10 years. If a new Congressional debt committee cannot forge a deficit-reduction agreement by Thanksgiving, Panetta faces what he calls a “doomsday mechanism” mandating an additional $500 billion in cuts.
We’ve got to make sure other, less deserving, states get hit while we make a fortune in arms. How does Camp Dallas and Fort Houston sound? The Waco Naval Base has a ring. We had two Presidents Bush, why not two Bush Air Force Bases? There’s always talk of putting troops along our border with Mexico. I propose the Rio Grande Missile Range five miles wide from Brownsville to El Paso. Put the “Fort” back in “Fort Worth” and the “Camp” back in “El Campo.” If Honda can build pickups in San Antonio, Honda can build Humvees in Hondo. “Stewart Beach – watch out for Marine amphibious landings.” Let Secretary Panetta cut all the budget funds he wants – just not ours. It reminds us of the Texas rancher who said, “I’m not greedy. All I want is my own land…and that next to it.”
Look, it’s about time we got more camouflaged bucks, because this current administration hasn’t been doing us any favors, nor should we expect it to. Obama didn’t even win the Texas Democratic primary and got his clock cleaned here in the general election: McCain won by a landslide. Obama won the presidency without us, and sure doesn’t owe Texas any favors. As a result, Sealy lost the multi-billion dollar Army truck contract with 1,300 workers laid off and Houston couldn’t even land a lousy used spacecraft. Get over it, and do so by putting a Texan back in the White House.

Ashby enlists at ashby2@comcast.net

BEWARE OF GEEKS BEARING GIFTS

If I push this button, I get the weather forecast. For Oslo. In Greek. This button takes a photo of my face from the inside. Push this one and a bomb goes off in Kabul. I think this one causes a Swiss Army knife to pop out. In case you are wondering what I am attempting to do – I am operating this gift from my children. It’s an Ipad2, or maybe an iPadTwo or a LaunchingPad3-2-1.
I was never good in operating the newest black boxes, but it’s not my fault and I shall briefly explain why. It might make you feel better, too. First, some necessary background: It is a little known fact, and justifiable so, that the very first person in the world to buy a Windows 95 software program was a 19 year old business student in New Zealand by the name of Jonathan Prentice.
Others followed and at the end of that first day, Aug. 23, 1995, some $30 million worth of the Microsoft program had been sold. By the end of that year 20 million copies, at roughly $85 each, were purchased, enough to ensure Microsoft’s chief, Bill Gates, a reasonably secure future.
Even today the rush continues as PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod and semaphore geeks fight to be the first in their Boy Scout troop to own the latest toy. They line up in the freezing dark on sidewalks outside stores to purchase some box, made by 12-year-olds in China that has a catchy name and high price. And do they buy ‘em. Example: Apple has just announced it sold more than 4 million of its new iPhone 4S models in the first three days they were on sale. That’s the most ever sold for any phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days.
But now nerds in Palo Alto are working on the iPhone 5, because these gadgets have a short shelf life. I am always afraid that when I take my latest iGizmo out of the box, someone will say, “Oh, you have one of those old things. The Smithsonian was asking about it.”
Any new purchase of these technological Tinker Toys comes with books – plural — of instructions, diagrams and an 800 number to call when all else fails. All else always fails, so we call Singapore and get Ed Earl, he so claims, who can hardly speak English, and 45 minutes later we are in tears trying to make our latest $2,500 iJunk work.
When we buy a toaster, it arrives with a small pamphlet written by lawyers warning us not to stick a fork in the bread slot. My favorite is the hair dryer which carries the warning not to use it in the shower or bathtub. Here is an actual PC owner’s manual that begins with, “Your modem offers a range of internationally accepted standard modulation methods and protocols. It utilizes WinRPI software based V.42/MNP 2 4 error control and V.42 bis/MNP 5 data compression.” If a toaster’s manual read that way, you would return the toaster. What’s more, have you heard of toasters getting a virus?
I have a PC guru, Marty, on speed dial. He is at my house about once a month to fix the Computer From Dell. Do you have a garbage disposal guru on call? Does LeRoy, the alarm clock wizard, make regular visits to your house, manual and tool kit in hand?
Ah, but why, exactly, are our PCs, Windows, iThis and iThat so unreliable and moody? Because they are not the cutting edge of scientific technology, not the end-all, be-all of the 21st Century. There is something left to invent. You see, these latest instruments are actually very crude. They are just in their early stages, and our grandchildren will laugh uproariously at our ancient axes.
How crude? Let’s compare life spans. Remember that Jonathan Prentice bought the first Microsoft Widows 95 some 16 years ago. The U.S.’s first scheduled commercial airline flight was on Jan. 1, 1914. In Windows’ years, airlines today would be at the 1930 stage. Thirty years ago, on Aug. 12, 1981, IBM first introduced its microcomputer, and that is regarded as the opening of computer season. Henry Ford sold his first car in 1896. After 30 years, the same time span of improvements, would you send your family off to Disneyland in a 1926 Ford?
The first regular scheduled TV programming was begun by General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y., on May 11, 1928. Think of your PC as a black and white DuMont TV set with a six inch screen, and think of the latest Windows as rabbit ears. The original iPhone was introduced in the U.S. on June 29, 2007. That breakthrough is now brokethrough: We’re into the fifth generation of iPhones, so you can junk that four-year-old antique. Still got your original Walkman? It’s 32 years old, which is where Xerox was in 1938. Oct. 23 was the10th anniversary of the iPod. Our war in Afghanistan is 16 days longer.
It is foolish to assume these babies are born as adults, honed to perfection. Nor is your latest magical miracle user-friendly. Blackberries went down worldwide recently and the mother company offered $100 million in apps to mollify irate customers.
Even the computers and such in stores are toddlers in need of a change. How many times have you been told by a bank teller or shop clerk, “I’m sorry but our computers are down.”? They never say that about their vacuum cleaners. So don’t feel the world has passed you by because you can’t operate the MegaX Y-76 which cheats the IRS and fakes your death.
Here’s another example: If I tap on this icon, it either contacts my pest controller or flosses my teeth. I’m not sure which. When you get stumped, and can’t make your iThing text to the cloud via your 1080p HD video, do as I do: ask your children.

Ashby is obsolete in at ashby2@comcst.net

Inept Dems

By Lynn Ashby                                                            24 Oct. 2011

Will Rogers’ oft-quoted observation, “I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.” has never been truer. The Democrats (let’s shorten this to Dems) are the most inept American political party since the Know Nothings, both on the national and state level, and show no signs of improving. Thus it has been easy for the Republicans to move into the vacuum – especially in Texas.

Don’t believe me? Take Harry Reid, please. I would say he looks, talks and acts like a small town Baptist preacher rather than the majority leader of the U.S. Senate, except Baptist preachers know how to give a thundering sermon. Reid just mumbles, looks down at his shoelaces and mumbles some more. That’s leadership? And what didn’t happen to Nancy Pelosi? She led the 2010 disaster for House Dems and should have been replaced for her ineffectiveness. She’s still the leader, maybe because that’s the best the Dems can do. But they can’t hold a gavel to Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell who are sharp, mean, know how to bluff and intimidate, and it works. (See: ceiling, debt)

The GOP controls one half of one-third of the federal government, but that 400 pound elephant runs Washington. Name one powerful Democrat besides President Obama. (Some would question that premise. He has been mugged by pros and still plays the nice guy.) Actually, I can name two powerful Dems: Bill and Hillary Clinton. They are also sharp and mean, but both are on the sidelines. Today the party of the donkey has no Jefferson, Jackson, FDR or Truman. Indeed, when it comes to winning elections, the Dems have no Karl Rove, master of sleaze.

The Dems also desperately need their own Roger Ailes, the Fox News chief, because the Republican Party commands the airwaves for no reason except that it lacks competition. Fox News (there’s an oxymoron for us) wins the ratings war nightly. Bill O’Reilly, despite setbacks like his egomania, constantly interrupting his guests, misinformation and the small matter of a sexual harassment suit which he bought off, has twice the viewers as poor CNN and MSNBC.

The most listened to radio talk show host is Rush Limbaugh, who daily opines arrogantly on families, children, the military and those pinhead professors in higher education. He has had four wives, no children, dodged the draft and briefly attended a small college in Missouri. Still, he rules.

Liberals tried to mount their own radio network, Air America, which bombed due to the three N’s: inexperience, ineptitude and in-fighting. To be fair (and balanced), Fox had its own bomb when it attempted to run a conservative faux news program like Comedy Central. I believe it lasted three shows before being yanked. Leave comedy to the libs.

Remember the old days when Dems like LBJ ran the Senate as his own mom-and-pop store and sly old Sam Rayburn played the House like his private orchestra? The Dems politely listened to the GOPers, then did as they pleased, and Texas got whatever it wanted. Oh, those were also good times for Lone Star Democrats in Austin. They had been in firm control of the Texas government since Reconstruction ended in 1874. It’s hard to realize that the Dems ran Texas for 100 years, longer the PRI controlled Mexico or the Communists ran the Soviet Union.

Back then, whoever won the Dem primary in Texas was automatically sworn into office. John Tower changed that on a fluke but, as John Connally used to say, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. It left me.” Connally, Phil Gramm, even Gov. Rick Perry and scores of other life-long Dem officials switched parties. Today outsiders think that was weird, and chasten Perry for his Democratic youth, but here in Texas everybody was doing it and the switch didn’t make any difference.

The last time Democrats in Texas won a major statewide race — president, Senate or governor — was back in 1990 when Ann Richards was elected governor.That was before some of today’s voters were born. Well-funded Dem candidates like Tony Sanchez and well-intentioned candidates like former Houston Mayor Bill White went down to ignominious defeat. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Previously, a Democrat had to win Texas to win the White House, but in the 1992 elections Bill Clinton won the Oval Office while losing Texas electoral votes. Barack Obama did the same.

The Texas Tribune reported last year: “In the latest election, the Democrats lost record numbers of incumbents down the ballot…the number of Democrats in the 150-member State House fell to a historic low of 51 from 74. But Republicans won unprecedented victories at the local level, too: They elected 115 county judges in the state’s 254 counties, 339 county commissioners, 209 constables and 78 sheriffs. Party officials say that, in all, they gained 234 elected officials at the county level in Texas.”

In my own case, every single elected official above me — from city council to county commissioner, state rep and state senator, the U.S. House and Senate — every one of them is GOP. Some are good, most are ghastly, but it makes no difference, if they’ve got an R by their name on the ballot, they’re in. It’s not that the GOPers are so smart, it’s that the Dems are so bloody inept. An intelligent and efficient Dem today must be frustrated. Those party meetings must sound and look like the Children’s Crusade. No organization, no money, no decent candidates and no future. Where are Lloyd Bensten, Jim Hogg, John Nance Garner and Bob Bullock? The Dems have replaced Barbara Jordan with Sheila Jackson Lee.

We began with a quote by Will Rogers, so let’s end with one that certainly applies to today’s hapless Democratic Party leaders: “If you’re riding’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there.”

 

Ashby is independent at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

POLLS APART

THE MAIL BOX — Here’s an interesting letter from Americans for a Better America. “As a leader in the community, your opinion is most valued in making policy for the AmerBetAmer. Please take a moment to fill out the enclosed survey which we shall use in our etc. etc.” Hey, that’s me, a leader in the community. OK, maybe in the neighborhood, or my block or my office, for sure.

No matter, Americans for a Better America need my advice. First question from this independent, non-partisan organization: “I believe President Obama (a) is our best president ever (b) is a genius (c) deserves a second Nobel Peace Prize.” Here’s another question: “Speaker John Boehner should be: (a) crucified (b) ostracized (c) cauterized.” I’m not real sure this is an independent, non-partisan group. On reading further, I am asked whether illegal immigrants should be given either a two- or four-year college scholarship, should brokerage houses be razed and salt sewn on their site and should all branches of the military be unionized.

As a leader of your community, you, no doubt get these questionnaires, too. Sometimes they are accompanied by a personal letter from either Presidents Bush, Obama, Clinton or Bush asking me by name – which is dropped into every other paragraph – to support their party and/or vote for their candidate. They always end with: “To further our goals and preserve America from the pagan opposition which seeks to strangle our children and jail our parents, please make a donation to Americans for a Free America” (or maybe People Who Love Their Country, Citizens Against Bad Things). This donation can be made with cash, check, credit card or beaver pelts. They usually ask for $50 and quickly move to $10,000 which makes me a Friend of Important People.

Here’s another letter. This is from Texans for a More Livable Earth. Must be one of those tree-hugger groups organized by flower children from the 60s. “Most people believe a little arsenic in our water doesn’t hurt. Do you agree or are you one of those leftist-pinkos who thinks we should go back to living in caves?” Strange. Next question: “How warmly would you welcome a job-creating toxic dump in your neighborhood school yard?” This must be a lobbying group which hides itself in a title that means exactly the opposite of its goals. Here’s a clue. In fine type it reads: “Paid for by Friends of SMOG.” They take credit cards made with non-recyclable plastic.

At least I’m not paying for it. My Congressman is constantly sending me news letters touting his success in stopping anything the opposition supports. There are photos of him wielding the gavel in the House, which appears to be empty, along with stories about how he saved civilization by voting to abolish child labor laws and the EPA but to increase Congressional pay raises. At the bottom, in fine print, usually in Norwegian, “Paid for by taxpayers. Speaking of which, my re-election fund could use some help. Please use the return envelope. Cash is preferable.”

Last week I got a letter from Karl Rove. Clever fellow. He, too, knows I’m a leader in this time zone. “Do Democrats deserve a warning shot?” “How much did you donate to the George W. Bush Presidential Library & Swift Boat Yacht Club? That’s not enough.” “Should Barack Hussein Obama be given political asylum or returned to Kenya?” “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would only donate to my PAC, Americans Who Believe in Karl Rove? Credit cards are accepted.”

The division between church and state is becoming blurred, which is why the Rev. Leviticus Deuteronomy, head of Americans Who Believe in Doing Good, sent me a solicitation “to throw out the Godless non-Christians who attempt to elect people with funny last names.” Tithing is accepted – and expected.

It’s gonna get worse. Be prepared for an onslaught of donation-seeking missives about the upcoming – like in more than a year – presidential elections. That contest, we will be assured, “is the most important election in American history,” which is self-important twaddle. The most important presidential election was in 1860, which resulted in the bloodiest war in our nation’s history. The 1932 election was important because it resulted in the end of Prohibition. In comparison, the 2012 contest won’t mean much. That won’t stop us from being hammered by letters seeking our advice, and, of course: “In order to continue our fight please donate etc. etc.”

Besides buttering us up as a world leaders, they play the guilt trip by sending us something we don’t want, didn’t ask for and would like to return but it’s too much trouble. Calendars, bumper stickers and, above all, return-address stickers. I’ve got a drawer full of them. Doctors Against Sickness sent me 8,000 stickers and a plea for “contributions to fight this terrible disease.” Is this lobbying group opposing Doctors For Sickness?

The Ralph Nader Kill the Fat Cats Committee asked: “Are thumb screws too gentle for Detroit’s big three or do you recommend water-boarding?” Recently I got a survey from the Mexican-American Immigration Forum. It was in Spanish.

But unlike these objective and neutral surveys, some questionnaires are so slanted and loaded as to make me wonder if the sender really expects an honest feel for the country. “As a leading candidate for sainthood, what is your main source of news? The liberal, anti-American mainstream media. The fair and balanced Fox News. Some guy who told you. Graffiti on the restroom walls. Sarah Palin’s autobiography. Your tax-supported den of liars in the White House. None of the above.” Another survey: “Do you generally identify yourself as a (a) money-grubbing, polluting, Wall Street sleazy, Nazi knuckle-dragger (b) Democrat?”

A final survey: “As a leader of the Western World, do you think these questions are slanted and loaded, or do you agree with us, Texans for a Greater Texas? Either way, please make a generous contribution to….”

Ashby is questionable at ashby2@comcast.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MALLED BY AN EXTERMINATOR

 

 

THE PARKING LOT – Most people don’t see the front of their car very often, which is why so many vehicles are on the roads with only one headlight. I park my car in the barn head first and go into the house. Probably so do you. In a parking lot I usually approach my car from the rear. Thus it is impossible to determine when and where this happened: there is a gash in my front bumper, not a bad one, but I find out later it will cost me $375 to get it fixed.

I sure didn’t hit anything hard enough to cause this scar or I’d known it. Perhaps a valet parker performed the surgery. They go racing out to the parking lot of the cockfight to retrieve your car and drive it back at Mach 2. But more probably this slicing and dicing occurred when I was parked in a slot in a shopping center and some other vehicle came roaring in to park and slammed into my front bumper. Whoever did the damage knew it, but chose to just ignore the problem. Why? No insurance, probably. Every time the state insurance board checks, about one-fourth to one-third of Texas motorists have no car insurance.

Simply being in shopping centers is participating in a demolition derby, hazardous to the health of you and your car. First, people drive across the empty parts of the lots without regard to lanes, stop signs and white stripes. We have no way of knowing where that cannonball is headed. It has been observed that a Texas developer’s idea of an unchartered wilderness is a parking lot without white stripes, yet there are the people who don’t know how to park between the white stripes. They straddle them, or park way over to one side so that when you come out to get in your car you have to climb through the trunk.

You have noticed, no doubt, that shopping center parking lots are stop-free zones. Cars just roll through stop signs. Another problem: Have you ever returned from the anvil store to your car and you can’t find it? I used to be lost until I put on my new bumper sticker: “Ask me about my grand-serf” and: “I’d Rather Be Pillaging.” Speaking of bumper stickers, in my local shopping center LSU decals and “Geaux Tigers” outnumber Longhorn and Aggie bumper stickers and shiny metal stick-ons. Around presidential elections no one needs to poll my neighbors. Any car bearing a Democratic candidate’s name gets a parking ticket.

Here are the spaces reserved for the handicapped. Notice the pogo sticks and skateboards in the back seats. These are the same cars we see at lots set aside for marathon runners. Some slots are reserved for 15-minute parkers. Those 15 minutes can last for hours. Ah, here’s a spot up close. No, wait. It’s full of grocery carts. Actually, I see grocery carts scattered all over the lot. Some are spread around the neighborhood. When the anchor store is a grocery, you see lots of carts. When the anchor is a Macy’s or Dillard’s, it’s probably closed.

Here comes a car towards me. Just as some people can’t park between white lines, some ignore the gigantic white arrows painted on the asphalt, and drive the wrong way down the lane. We might think that all the rows of parked cars which are facing the other direction would be a clue as to which way to go. Some people are stupid.

Before backing out from my slot, I always look carefully both ways, and all I see are the sides of SUVs the size of my local post office. Am I the only person in Texas who still drives a car? Not a pickup truck with eight doors, 17-feet high and a front deer catcher, or an RV that holds the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Vans also block out the sunlight. But mostly it’s the SUVs that make backing out in a shopping center parking lot suicidal. With a Dodge X-2 Exterminator on one side and a Ford Outback Annihilator on the other, slowly I back out, only to be greeted by a loud horn blast as someone is telling me that my next visit will be to the body repair shop.

Incidentally, the Highland Park Shopping Center in Dallas claims to be the first and oldest such center in the nation. I was there the other day. You still have to inherit a parking slot. I like shopping centers where you can drive right up to the tattoo parlor, get out and walk in. For that reason I am not a big fan of malls because I have to park miles away. Malls have parking lots with their own ZIP codes. Then, after shopping and lugging packages and/or pushing strollers, wheel chairs or carrying a manikin, you weave your way through the muggers to get to your car.

As I drive around, I look for the car that smashed in my front bumper. (An SUV would have pushed the engine into the trunk.) Playing CIS, I am on the watch for scraps of my paint on the offending offender’s bumper. It seems half the vehicles have some kind of scratch, dent, dog fur or handlebar embedded in them.

Recently I was in a fender-bender in this parking lot. A woman suddenly pulled out in front and hit me. At least that was my version. She said it was my fault. “Officer, are you going to believe me or those two surveillance cameras?” I whined.

All of this reminds me of the guy who scrapes another car in a parking lot. He notices several shoppers waiting to see what he’ll do. So he gets out a pad and pen and writes: “I just scraped your car and everyone thinks I’m leaving you my name and phone number. I’m not. Drop dead.”

 

Ashby is double-parked at ashby2@comcast.net

WELCOME TO TEXAS

We must consider this statement: “Aggies are alums of Perry’s alma mater, Texas A&M.” Uh-oh. Explaining that an Aggie is a student or graduate of Texas A&M is so obvious. It’s like explaining to a lion tamer that he shouldn’t wear a meat suit. Not to put too fine a point on it (don’t you just love those pompous English terms?), but the aging Fightin’ Farmers don’t even call themselves “alums,” but rather “former students” or “Turkey Day Depressed.”

The above quote is from an essay in The New York Times by columnist Gail Collins, a remarkably astute journalist who is writing a book on Texas. But obviously, when it comes to the Lone Star State, readers of the Times don’t know beans – which they probably put in their chili. So what’s new?

What’s new is that Collins’s work is only one of many by visiting journalists from the Eastern establishment press who have come to write about our state, because of the impending presidency of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Many reports will be enlightening, but many will be wrong. So in an attempt to head off errors, distortions and omissions about our beloved home, let us offer some advice, remembering all along: Longhorns and longnecks, no place but Texas, built by God, guns and guts – the last two can be seen in some of our finer watering holes on Saturday nights.

First, we don’t like government, pronounced “gubment.” Texas is a donor state, meaning we send more money to Washington than we get back. This does not prevent us from wrestling every dime we can from the U.S. Treasury, as the Johnson Space Center was telling the Houston Ship Channel and Fort Hood. This is not hypocrisy, but a love-hate relationship. We love the bank. We hate the banker.

A few more points: “Friday Night Lights” is shown on the Religion Channel. The Texas Legislature has proclaimed four Official Heroes of Texas: Stephen F. Austin, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston and – no kidding — Earl Campbell. If you put a hinge on the top of the Panhandle and flipped Texas northward, Brownsville would be in Canada, but this would sure flatten Topeka. Brownsville is nearer to Guatemala than it is to Dalhart. Texans believe the Second Amendment gives everyone the Constitutional protection to protect the Constitution.

Some don’ts: Never say, “Willie’s OK but I prefer Bach.” “Davy surrendered.”

Never walk into a cantina, ice house or saloon and shout: “Draw!” Don’t use your car’s directional blinker. Armadillos are not possum on the half shell. And don’t mess with Texas, ever!

There are some myths which you should not repeat: It is a myth that Texas can leave the Union anytime it wishes. We tried that once, in 1861, and it didn’t fly. Another myth is that only the Lone Star flag can fly at the same height as the U.S. flag. Any state can do that. But we do love our ensign. During the flag-burning debate before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 21, 1989, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor asked the Texas attorney whether a state has as much interest in protecting its state flag as the American flag. Justice Antonin Scalia interjected, “Well, Texas maybe.” The Texas attorney replied, “Texas, absolutely, your honor.” I rest my case.

 

Religion is important in Texas. We firmly believe God may be an Englishman, but when he retires he’ll move to Lakeway. It is no accident that the largest building in any small town is the First Baptist Church. The second largest is the Second Baptist Church. Listen to the radio preachers who will tell you how they found God. For some it was through the Yellow Pages. You will learn that Texans follow a common faith and a common Sunday prayer, especially if the Cowboys are behind. And note how, before we execute our convicts, they are read their civil rites.

Some of you ink-stained wretches will write of “Texas fatigue” because so many Texans have occupied the White House in recent years. Beginning with Eisenhower, and if Perry wins two terms, a Lone Star Statesman will have occupied the Oval Office exactly half that time. So?

A few pointers on what we say and how we say it: “If at first you don’t secede…” is not a pun on a cliché but a political movement. When we speak of “inside the beltway” we mean our waistlines. “Foreign relations” refers to our cousins back in Matamoros. The “evil empire” is the EPA. When we want you to join us, we say, “Sit rat cheer.” A Yellow Dog Democrat is not a rabid Republican. The “oil business” is the “awl bidniss,” which needs government subsidies without those bothersome tree-huggers nosing around.

We can always spot a new TV weatherperson because they get place names wrong, so try: Refugio, Pedernales and Waxahachie. Despite the Branch Davidians’ fame, it’s WAY-koe, not WACK-o.

“Vanna, do we have a G up there for this cowboy?” We say goin’ and doin’ and talkin.’ When we say we’re fixin’ to do something, it does not mean we will take a hammer and nails to repair something. It means we are about to do something, like fix Perry’s platform.

This brings us to the three newcomers who were driving through central Texas and saw a sign, “Mexia.” Says one newcomer: “Up ahead is MEX-eye-a.”

“No,” says the other, “it’s pronounced, Muh-HAY-ya.”

“You’re both wrong,” says the third. “The town is called Meh-ee-uh.”

They pull into a cafe and order lunch. One says to the waitress, “Excuse me, Ma’m, but we’ve been arguing over how to pronounce the name of this place. Would you say it, real slowly?”

She takes a big breath, and says slowly, “DAY-re Queeeeen.”

Finally, one of our major problems is that so many others want to join us, crowding our schools, highways and jails. So welcome to Texas. Just don’t stay.

 

Tex Ashby is writin’ at ashby2@comcast.net

 

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