Houston In Winter

Fond memories of a wedding almost exactly 24 years ago, when Bob and Kathy Mullens got married at the chapel on the University of Houston campus.  The ceremony was fairy-tale like: the setting, the detail, everything.  Anyway, after the ceremony, everybody headed out to their cars for the roughly ten mile drive out to the west side for the reception.

The challenge was that the weather and road conditions were every bit as bad as what is predicted today.  Every road in Houston had iced up just in the time we were all in the chapel for the wedding.  This was no big deal for me.  In my home state of Michigan, we call this condition "Monday", so Sharon and I jumped in our car to head out.  Our friend Shirley begged to come with us because she was afraid of driving on the ice.

We left the campus and made our way up to Hwy 59.  The ice was extensive but drivable, not that you would suspect so based on the protests coming out of the back seat.  I was driving too fast, taking corners way too fast, and oh my goodness, you're not taking the expressway are you?

Shirley clutched the front seat for dear life so she could be certain that I could hear her and be able to react to her timely advice.  Sharon was hanging on to the assist handle on the passenger's side, looking a little pale.

I was still mystified: why all the concern?

Once we dropped onto Hwy 59, I began to understand.  Southbound and northbound, cars were creeping along at roughly 10 miles per hour.  The shoulders were littered with automobiles involved in minor wrecks, most turned in some direction other than prevailing traffic.  Within one mile, we actually passed a car resting on its roof, rear wheels turning lazily, the stunned driver suspended in midair, apparently still too confused about his predicament to put the shift lever in park and turn off the engine.

How, I'm thinking, is this even possible?  Nobody was going faster than 10 mph; his car had no other damage; there were no other cars in the area; Shirley screamed.

I moved over to the shoulder to lend assistance, but literally as soon as I did a cop boomed up behind me and took control.  I was just moving onto the ramp to the 610 Loop, so I kept going.  After that, things only got worse, with scores of cars crowding the shoulders or resting against the dividers on the inside lanes every mile.  I watched several accidents unfold, and then it hit me: Houstonians don't know how to drive on ice and snow.  I don't just mean that they're kind of bad at it; I mean, they really suck. 

I neatly zipped in and around the vast landscape of minor damage, Shirley inconsolable in the back seat, swearing that she would never drive with me again.  I reasoned with her that the sooner we got to the reception hall, the safer it would be for us.  She was not convinced. 

Suffice to say, we got to our destination safely, and I think we all learned a valuable lesson.  Not entirely sure what that was, but Shirley swore she would "never ever" drive with me again.  I was a little grumpy that she did not better appreciate my virtuoso driving performance, but all was well once we got inside.  The bar was open, so we all sat down with a glass of wine and waited for the rest of the crowd to arrive.

Nobody showed up for another 45 minutes.

Vindication takes many forms.  In this instance, it was the undivided attention of the bartender for the better part of an hour, and the certainty that my friend Shirley had come to the realization that I would be a better driver drunk than anybody else she knew sober.

Fond memories.

Wendy Davis vs. Newt Gingrich

Regarding "Politics twists slight errors into blatant lies" (Wednesday City & State), what is interesting to me is the kid glove treatment of Wendy Davis by the media compared to another prominent political figure accused of precisely the same behavior: Republican icon Newt Gingrich.  At the age of 19, Gingrich married his high school geometry teacher, Jackie Battley, several years his senior.  She worked to put him through school, paid all of the bills, and raised their children while Newt focused on his studies.  And when he was done with her, Gingrich divorced Jackie Battley.

 

Almost without exception, this is exactly the relationship that Wendy Davis had with her second husband Jeff, but there are two important differences: 1) Newt never wove a fictitious "log cabin" bio about raising babies and pursuing an education whilst pulling himself up by his bootstraps as Wendy Davis did; and 2) There was no effort on the part of anybody in the media to make excuses for his selfish behavior and the way he used his first wife.

 

Gingrich deserved the press he got, and so does Davis.  As to whether or not she is guilty of "blatant lies", just consider that to this day, she has taken credit for most everything that Jeff Davis did.  Gingrich at least had the decency to publicly acknowledge his first wife's sacrifices on his behalf.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

Congratulations Mr. Christie, Here's Your Supoena

There's a certain irony in reading that former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is being pursued so relentlessly by federal prosecutors for allegedly accepting $165K in gifts and loans, when the current governor Terry "Global Crossing" McAuliffe used his influence with the Clinton Administration to scam tens of millions.  McAuliffe is also the guy who invented the modern day practice of renting out the Lincoln bedroom for money donations to the Clinton campaign.  But don't take my word for it, read Mother Jones:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/terry-mcauliffe-governor-Virginia

It's also no coincidence that McDonnell is a Republican and McAuliffe a Democrat.  Obama's thoroughly politicized justice department is also pursuing New Jersey Governor Chris Cristie over a whiff of scandal while generations of his Democrat predecessors got a Hall Pass for blatant corruption, and the IRS is stalking a handful of Republicans in Hollywood for trying to do on a tiny scale what Hollywood liberals have done globally for decades. 

If Democrats were judged by the same standards they apply to Republicans, McAuliffe would be sharing a cell with Bernie Madoff; Al Gore and former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would have the cell next door; and Nancy Pelosi would occupy whatever the female wing reserved for politicians who - like Gore - stole in excess of $100 Million dollars.  I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for any of that to happen, but we can always dream.

Twitter, Touretter, It's All The Same To Me

I read an article this morning that got me to thinking once again about social media, and the manner in which they are deranging society, and particularly young folk.  To my mind, it’s gotten so bad, that my interest borders on obsession, but can you blame me?  In an earlier day, I would have been the guy near the end of the Roman Empire who was saying “Seriously people, do you suppose we could dial back on the drunken orgies just a little bit and pay a damn minute of attention to our borders?” 

That is where we’re at with Social Media and hand held devices.

The article that provoked this meditation was titled Study: Facebook Will Lose 80% Of Its Users By 2017.  The authors reached this conclusion by using the same mathematical models for Facebook that were used to chart the progression of plague-like diseases.  The analogy is certainly apt, but if in fact the precipitous crash of Facebook and other social media happens, it will be for distinctly non-disease like reasons. 

Diseases eventually decline because of the concept of saturation: simply put, once every susceptible to a disease is infected, there’s nobody left to get infected.  In the case of social media, though, there is as of yet no indication of saturation, particularly amongst the young.  Part of the reason these trends haven’t peaked is the rapid evolution of the technologies.  There has simply never been a baseline against which to measure the phenomenon in order to determine if it’s pathological in its effect. 

Think about it: At the start of the Social Media era just twenty-odd years ago, all we had was kludgy old E-Mail, which has simply an electronic version of regular mail: Text oriented with limited multi-media capabilities, labor intensive if you wanted to distribute your message to a wider audience, and likewise for recipients to do a mass reply.  Bottom line, there were physical constraints to putting a mass message out to the world, although it did have the advantage of providing a message with limit as to length.

The first web-based social media outlets were the likes of MySpace and Facebook, offering limited messaging capability, but with text, pictures, video, the IQ-destroying "Like" function – and most nefariously – a utility for connecting with hundreds if not thousands of other Users with a minimum of effort.  This single feature lobotomized social intercourse more surely than the “boob tube” ever could: Provided the opportunity to have a list of 50 “friends” versus, say, 500, most people chose the larger group.  This was true mostly because Users immediately grasped that a friends list was not just Friends, but an audience.  And in the early days, a larger Friends list was thought to be innocent and consequence free.

With the evolution from personal communications like E-Mail to a distributed platform like Facebook, it was incredibly easy not only to inflict your every thought and gripe on a group of "Friends", but play games, post photo albums, gorge on your Friends' every post, create alternate realities like Farmville just in case real life got too messy, and otherwise create an online presence that made your every flaw visible to the world: And all of it within a communications framework that literally made conversation impossible. 

Next we were on to Twitter, which cleverly limited the text message to 140 characters and wasn't fussy at all about grammar, thus sustaining the self-esteem of Millennials educated in public schools.  Twitter is without a doubt the primary outlet for the Idiocracy: folks with absolutely no clue, a heroin-like addiction to the attention of others, and a ton of disposable time and income.  Just ask Justin Bieber or Paris Hilton: http://tinyurl.com/EpicTwitterFail.  Hashtag this, you numbskulls.

Since then, social media have gotten increasingly specialized.  There's Pinterest, a site I am convinced was built by women, for women, and whose sole purpose is to allow them to scrounge the Internet for an endless supply of home and personal improvement ideas designed to ensure that their husbands and boyfriends have zero free time.  There are no more dread words in a relationship than "Honey, look what I found on Pinterest!"  Of course, real life is always messier than the virtual perfection on line, but hey, don't take my word for it: http://epicpinterestfail.com.

Finally, we come to pictographic sites like Instagram that marry a smart phone camera, a short attention span, limited technical ability and the underdeveloped cerebral cortex of the key 14 to 24 demographic that allows them to make complete asses of themselves - with pictures - in mere seconds.  Those of us with some perspective see "Selfies" for what they really are: a record of excruciatingly embarrassing and consequential moments broadcast to the world on a whim; Post-Millennials see them as real-time projections of their personal awesomeness.  How else to explain the epidemic of nudies broadcast to the world by disgruntled ex-boyfriends?  Seriously Girls?  Next to "I love you" and any declaration that includes the words "everybody's doing it", the least believable thing your boyfriend will ever tell you is: "For Reals Babe, this picture/video is just for me". 

Where does it all end?  The answer is, it doesn't.  Given the trend-line, the next evolution of social media will have even shorter messaging capabilities, will necessarily be more vulgar, and will take inappropriateness to a whole new level.  It will at once be incoherent, louder and ruder than anything that has come before.  The messages themselves will be much more stream-of-consciousness, ejaculations that are a direct connection between the brain and the mouth, unfiltered by the Id. 

The only logical name for this site is "Touretter.com”, which is why I have just reserved the site on GoDaddy.  Come the next wave, I'm going to cash in big time.  "Fuck!  Shit! Raspberries!": pictures attached.

The “Touretterverse” is inevitable, and, the lexicon will have yet another term that documents our slide into oblivion. 

Wendy Davis Whoppers

Regarding "Politics twists slight errors into blatant lies" (Wednesday City & State), Lisa Falkenberg makes the case that the mistruths on gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis' biography were not really due to any intention on Davis' part to deceive, but rather, that the statements of public figures get blown out of proportion.  The problem is that what is known does little to support this notion. 

 

First is Davis' portrayal of herself as a single mom with her and her baby relegated to a trailer home.  Contrary to that narrative, though, she and her first husband Frank Underwood moved in to that trailer home with their daughter together, and she took up with her eventual second husband, Jeff Davis, almost a year before she got a divorce.  Afterwards, Underwood paid her child support.  Her bio also allows you to believe that her father virtually abandoned her, and yet, she worked at her Dad's restaurant when she met Jeff Davis.

 

Davis portrays herself as funding her own education, but all of the available evidence suggests that 100% of the funding for all of her education not covered by grants and loans came from Jeff Davis.  They were cohabiting before she even started her freshman year in college, and she divorced Davis mere weeks after he had paid off the loans he took out to fund her post-grad degree.

 

Her portrayal as a devoted Mom is belied by the fact that she lost custody to Davis and at one point had restraining orders because of her partying ways.  She never regained custody.

 

To me the biggest "lie" Davis tells is in giving herself credit for the selfless actions of her second husband, Jeff Davis.  To this day, none of her official bio even mentions his name.  Still and all, I give credit to Ms. Falkenberg for at least calling Davis' untruths "lies".  Most other mainstream articles used words like "gaffe" or "flub"; One went all pop culture and called it "blurred lines".

 

The last person to get the benefit of so many doubts was candidate Barack Obama.  I believe most reporters now regret that decision.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

Bad Science Equals Bad Policies

Regarding "‘Neglected topic’ winner: climate change", (Tuesday page B11), NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof declares that the reason there is no action on global warming is because of the "disjunction between scientific consensus and popular perception" of Americans.  He then proposes that the primary reason for the disjunction "is that when Democrats, led by Al Gore, championed climate change, Republicans instinctively grew suspicious."

 

His article follows the tiresome tried and true formula of Global Warmers to prove man-caused pollution as the source of climate change: a) Trot out the indisputable fact that there has been a significant rise in atmospheric CO2; b) Show correlation between pollution levels and global warming; c) Cite polls that show Republicans to be "climate deniers" who obstruct any solution.

 

This formula is simplistic on any number of levels, starting with the fact that historical efforts to control CO2 in America - mostly by onerous regulation - have driven most of America's manufacturing capacity to countries like China and India, where there is no meaningful pollution control of any kind.  So thanks, Global Warmers: you actually managed to drive CO2 levels up by orders of magnitude with those ill-conceived policies.

 

Beyond that, there is a much more straightforward means to account for rising CO2 levels and prove they are man-made.  Since mankind has practiced agriculture, biomes like forests, grasslands and wetlands with a very high capacity to absorb CO2 have been replaced with the biome that is the absolute worst at absorbing CO2: cropland, which now equals 20% of total land area on Earth. 

 

So why are these realities never any part of the climate change debate?  Because it deprives Global Warmers of the opportunity to blame America, and it deprives them of the ability to continue confiscating our money so as to implement their "solutions".  Transforming the Earth for agriculture and the migration of manufacturing to the worlds' major polluters are the two elephants in the Global Warmers' living room, and until they start talking about them, sensible people will always question their conclusions, not to mention their judgment. 

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

The Real World Of Unemployment Benefits

Regarding "Loss of jobless aid leaves many with bleak options" (Monday Nation), I was amazed to read in the AP article that "Without their unemployment checks, many will abandon what had been a futile search and will no longer look for a job.....Beneficiaries have been required to look for work to receive unemployment checks."

 

First off, it makes no sense that when people are deprived of that paycheck that they will stop looking for work.  Quite the contrary.  Second, if the author had done a little homework, they would know that the job search requirements of the TWC (Texas Workforce Commission) and similar agencies nationwide are meaningless.  People on unemployment are required to do only three job searches per week, and the "search" can be as simple as filling out an online application, which takes five minutes.  And there is little oversight: Beneficiaries are not required to provide any documentation to the TWC, and audits by the TWC are virtually non-existent.

 

The one thing I won't disagree with in the article is that - under the current system, - the job search is "futile".  If you can coast by on three searches per week with no scrutiny from the TWC, you  aren't really trying to get a job, and likely never will.  Beneficiaries should be required to demonstrate four hours of effort per day, with regular scrutiny and guidance by the TWC.  Until that happens, the demand for Unemployment benefits will continue to grow out of control.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX

What In God's Name Were They Thinking?

Having followed the "Bridgegate" story the past couple days and now having watched Governor Christie's press conference, what is of interest to me is that the press continues to miss the real story.  The initial reports dealt strictly with the efforts of a handful within his administration to exact political revenge on a small town Democrat mayor by blocking traffic over the George Washington Bridge.  Now the stories are moving on to what Governor Christie knew, and when he knew it. 

 

Left completely untouched is why his deputy chief of staff and a low level appointee to the Port Authority would conspire to seek such petty retribution, much less discuss it so openly on state owned telephones and computers, much less think that it was not going to blow up in their faces.   

 

One reporter did address it indirectly, asking Christie if he had spoken to the people involved.  He said he hadn't.  What I want somebody to ask them is "what in god's name were you thinking?"  The answer should reveal a lot about the nature of New Jersey politics, not to mention Governor Christie's presidential prospects. 

Pete Smith
Cypress, TX

Pretty Wussified As Political Retribution Goes

Regarding "Christie catches heat for staff’s revenge" (Friday Front Page), don't get me wrong: nobody likes seeing the press give Chris Christie a Wedgie as much as me. You're welcome for the visual, by the way. That said, can this really be turned into a "scandal"?   Allegedly, one of his aides sought to teach a Democrat mayor who didn't endorse Christie a lesson by - blocking traffic for a few days.

I know, it doesn't quite stir the imagination like siccing the IRS on the Tea Parties; or running guns to gangsters in Mexico; or leaving Americans to die in Libya; or lying about, well, most everything when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.  Still, never let it be said that New Jersey Republicans can't also play hardball. You cross them, and they are going to subject you to a slight inconvenience. And then they will revel in your temporary discomfort. 

 

Brutal.

 

Pete Smith
Cypress, TX

LTE: Physician Privileges

The Confusion Of Abortion Advocates

Regarding "Judges question abortion law critics" (Monday Front Page), I was surprised to read that the AMA (American Medical Association) and  ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) filed friend-of-the-court briefs claiming "there is simply no medical basis” behind the law’s requirement for practitioners to have hospital admitting privileges because “hospitalization due to an abortion is rare."   

 

According to the National Institutes Of Health, over .5% of abortions result in complications and 6 of every 100,000 end with the death of the mother.  At roughly 75,000 abortions in Texas per year, that's close to 500 Texas women at risk and five that are likely to die from the procedure.  Exactly how great would the risk have to be before the AMA or ACOG decided admitting privileges were warranted? 

 

This is also a substantial policy reversal by both organizations, who in 2003 approved a statement on the regulation of outpatient procedures that was co-authored by the ACS (American College of Surgeons) and the AMA.  One of the core principles stated in part: "Physicians performing office-based surgery must have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital....".  Check it out: http://www.facs.org/fellows_info/statements/st-46.html.

 

Further confusing matters is the testimony by abortion rights activists at the same hearing that various Texas hospitals refuse to cooperate in providing abortion providers admitting privileges.  Why you would argue about needing admitting privileges when the AMA and ACOG claimed they weren't necessary in the first place?

 

Rhetoric aside, surely women who experience complications during an abortion are as entitled to be admitted to a hospital as patients who undergo any other outpatient procedure.  The arguments that abortion advocates put forward about hospital admitting do nothing to clarify the issue, which is why I look forward to a follow-up article that hopefully will.

 

Pete Smith, Cypress

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http://www.chron.com/opinion/letters/article/Friday-letters-Physicians-Social-Security-5129239.php

LTE: Doomed To Fail

Regarding "Kerry: Peace still possible despite rifts" (Friday World Page A8), the current peace talks forced on Israel by yet another American administration are following a predictable script: Palestine will not negotiate until Israel makes a "good will" gesture; that gesture is always the release of Palestinians who have bombed, shot and murdered Israelis.  Israel releases the prisoners; Palestinians give them "a hero's welcome"; Palestinians insist on concessions that literally insure the destruction of Israel; The negotiations fail; The American Secretary of State goes home empty handed; Islamists declare yet another "Intifada" and resume attacking Israel.

 

These efforts will always be doomed to failure because none of the organizations that represent Palestine have (has) any desire for peace.  For proof, you need look no further than the fact that PLO President Mahmoud Abbas gave the terrorists released from Israeli prisons "a hero’s welcome", even though he said out of the other side of his mouth that he "did not condone (their) deeds".  In the bizarre world of Middle East politics, this makes Abbas a "moderate".  What he is in reality is a man whose sole agenda is the destruction of Israel.  Don't take my word for it: hatred not just of Israel but of Jews is taught throughout the Palestinian school system, and has been for generations.

 

These negotiations will never go anywhere until American politicians grasp this reality.  Surely former Palestinian President Yassar Arafat's rejection of President Clinton's peace plan in 2000 and the Intifada that followed is all the proof you need as to the folly of negotiating with terrorists.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX
------------------------------------------------
Regarding “Kerry: Peace still possible despite rifts” (Page A8, Friday), the current peace talks forced on Israel by yet another American administration are following a predictable script: Palestine will not negotiate until Israel makes a “good will” gesture; that gesture is always the release of Palestinians who have bombed, shot and murdered Israelis. Israel releases the prisoners; Palestinians give them “a hero’s welcome”; Palestinians insist on concessions that literally ensure the destruction of Israel; the negotiations fail; the U.S. Secretary of State goes home empty-handed; Islamists declare yet another “Intifada” and resume attacking Israel.

   These efforts will always be doomed to failure because none of the organizations that represent Palestine has any desire for peace. For proof, you need look no further than the fact that PLO President Mahmoud Abbas gave the terrorists released from Israeli prisons “a hero’s welcome,” even though he said out of the other side of his mouth that he “did not condone (their) deeds.” In the bizarre world of Middle East politics, this makes Abbas a “moderate.” What he is in reality is a man whose sole agenda is the destruction of Israel.

   These negotiations will never go anywhere until U.S. politicians grasp this reality. Surely former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s rejection of President Bill Clinton’s peace plan in 2000 and the Intifada that followed are all the proof you need as to the folly of negotiating with terrorists.

Pete Smith, Cypress

http://www.chron.com/default/article/Saturday-letters-Palestine-Texas-Legislature-5112442.php