Annoying Weather Reports and Kelly Clarkson

Yesterday in a very rare personal whining indulgence I complained about one of my few pet peeves, that being how TV here in Texas can get interrupted during stormy weather by inane TV weatherperson's inane reports.

And so what do my grateful eyes see this morning in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram letters to the editors but an extremely insightful Fort Worth native also bemoaning the insanity of how the local TV stations cover storms. The letter writer is much more adept than I at describing the insanity. I'll copy and paste the letter below. And then below that I've got some fresh whining about another inanity that I've whined about before.

Some Sanity Please!
KXAS/Channel 5 pre-empted NBC’s national news program at 5:30 p.m. during the recent “winter storm.” We then got to see a reporter in the station’s parking lot scuffing slush with his tennis shoe, then a reporter in Dallas on an access road. Traffic was flying by and we then got to see a car turning onto a side street into the slush. Let’s see if he makes it. He does!

There was mayhem in Israel, a presidential race, medical news about the effect of inoculations on children, etc. But we didn’t get to hear about those events; children in Denton were making snow angels.

Interrupt the news if you need to for an emergency, but this type of weather coverage has gotten out of hand. I learned nothing during the 30 minutes that couldn’t have been covered during the regular local news at 6 p.m. Let’s put some sanity back into the news and weather coverage.

— Mary McCoy, Fort Worth

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Okay, I'm back whining now. That photo you see above was taken in the Texas town of Burleson at the premiere of a movie starring Kelly Clarkson. That is she you see entering the movie theater. I've mentioned before how that paper I like to whine about, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, has an odd habit of always pointing out the local Texas connection to any celebrity or pseudo-celebrity. I blogged about this previously which cause odd commentary from the paper's TV editor explaining that this practice has to do with trying to connect the locals to the story.

Now, notice in the paragraph above where I mention Kelly Clarkson being at a theater in Burleson? I did not feel I needed to write Burleson native Kelly Clarkson, or Burleson raised Kelly Clarkson. And I've got readers way outside of Texas who would not know this, if they cared, which they don't. Now, those who read the Star-Telegram live in Texas, live near Burleson, they know Kelly Clarkson is from here.

And yet any time the Star-Telegram mentions Kelly Clarkson they seem to feel they must re-inform their Texas readers that she is from Burleson. This seems sort of insulting, like they are underestimating the memories of their readers.

Just today, on the front page, under the headline, "Kelly Clarkson to Sing for the Pope", it said "Burleson-raised pop superstar Kelly Clarkson...". And then on the front page of the Entertainment section the Star-Telegram, in another article about the same subject, alters its usual Burleson modifier and says "Fort Worth-born pop superstar Kelly Clarkson...". Further down in the article, in case we've forgotten, we are told again that Kelly Clarkson is from Burleson, as in "Clarkson, who grew up in Burleson...".

This week I've not yet noticed the Star-Telegram making note of the Texas connections to the current American Idol contestants. My favorite of those is when the paper repeats for the umpteenth time, "Michael Johns, married to a Fort Worth native, who has visited Fort Worth."

Weather Gone Mad in Texas

It was a long dreary windy night with a lot of annoying noise, mostly trees being blown up against the roof, sounding like a Monster slapping its hand overhead over and over again. It was very warm all night long and very humid.

It must be almost Spring and tornado season. This morning it's been non-stop heavy rain with lightning. No tornado sirens yet.

This time of year in Texas always seems to activate one of my pet peeves. That being how I can be peacefully settled in and enjoying watching something like LOST. And then the weather interruptions will start up. First an annoying chime and then the shrinking of the picture to accommodate a weather warning crawling across the bottom of the screen. That repeats a few times and then ends with another chime and then the same info is repeated, without the chime, in the upper left corner.

The warnings repeat about every 3 minutes. It's totally distracting. And then, God forbid, if the Doppler Radar detects anything remotely indicating the circular motion of a possible tornado, anywhere within a couple hundred mile radius, then there will be the live interruption where the Ted Baxteresque local weather dunderhead earnestly tells you about the extreme weather.

Now, if you are safely inside watching TV why do you need this information? Usually if the storm gets real bad you lose power and so you can't see the TV warning. Most people have battery operated storm radios to turn to when the weather gets dicey. If you are out in the weather, or driving your car, what good does the TV weather interruption do you? It is so mindlessly idiotic and annoying. I mean, if you are home and watching TV and the weather is bad and you hear the tornado sirens you know what that means, as in head for shelter.

Now, there have been complaints, and as a result, maybe, the local ABC station (one of the worst offenders) has stopped, for now, the annoying chime. I guess that is progress in the right direction.

Last year after a particularly annoying bout of TV weather interruptions I read in that paper I'm always complaining about, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a puff piece yammering on about the brilliant job the local weather Ted Baxters do to protect us during a storm.

I pointed it out to the Star-Telegram that those brilliant weather interruptions probably kill more people than they save. Example, during the Fort Worth tornado of 2000, the TV weather reporters earnestly warned of incoming damage causing hail. A kid from Costa Rica saw that warning on the TV and asked his boss if he could go move his new pickup. On the way to his pickup he was hit on the head with a baseball size chunk of hail. And killed.

I know several people who were stuck in the the path of the Fort Worth tornado of 2000. None got out of harm's way due to a TV warning. The power got knocked out early in the storm. They had no TV. But they did have the common sense to head the warning sirens and head for safety.

So, the bottom line with these idiotic weather interruptions, if you are able to listen to one then you are likely totally safe. Those who might benefit from the warning don't have access to a TV. So, why is it so difficult for those who can say yes or no, to say no to the local Ted Baxter weather guys who want to break into regular programming to point out a circular hook over some distant lightly populated location in North Texas?

It perplexes me. I'll let you now the first time I experience this nonsense this year. Complete with screen caps. If my power doesn't go out.

Foul Mood and Thunder

I'm in a foul mood. Have been up since before 5am. It is being stormy in more ways than one this day in Texas, thunder is supposed to arrive soon. I thought maybe some endorphin medication might help rid me of my foul mood so I went on a long hike at Tandy Hills Park. That did not work. I'm pretty sure I was aerobic enough to cause endorphins to be released, but apparently not in an amount sufficient to make me feel better.

Why have I put this DIGG thing on each of these bloggings? Someone somewhere told me this was a good thing to do. But I don't know why. I asked Lulu if she knew. She didn't. She's getting "Blogging for Dummies" so that we/I might have some help at solving these riddles.

On my way to Tandy Hills Park I saw a bizarre billboard that said "I'm So Over You Sarah Marshall". In small print there was a website address, as in http://www.ihatesarahmarshall.com/. I looked at the website. I've no idea what to make of it. I mentioned the billboard to a deluded self-proclaimed marketing guru I have the misfortune of knowing and he told me he's seen the "I'm So Over Sarah Marshall" billboards all over the Metroplex.

On a totally different subject, the weekly column by Joseph Galloway was in this morning's Star-Telegram. He writes about military matters. He is very very aghast at the incompetence of our current president. Pretty much that's what all his columns are about in one way or the other. Today's first paragraph made note of the fact that this month marks the start of the 6th year of the War in Iraq. It is now the second most costly war in U.S. history, second to only WWII. United States participation in WWII ran from 1942 til August of 1945 (the U.S. declaration of war came after Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, but the offensive towards victory did not begin til 1942).

Galloway ended today's column with an interesting thought, saying "The next time we Americans start thinking about electing someone with no known talent and limited useful experience, what say we just leave the presidency vacant and the White House shuttered for eight years or so?"

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center Zebra Attack

A couple years ago I webpaged a visit to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. In one of the rare times that something I did, website-wise, actually generated anything worthwhile for me, I was sent a Season Pass to visit anytime I wanted, along with 2 guest passes.

Yesterday I realized I can not remember the last time I had been outside this Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex zone. So, with gas being only $3.15 a gallon and with Fossil Rim Wildlife Center being only about an 80 mile drive it seemed like a good idea, at the time, for another visit.

Fossil Rim is like a drive through Safari. Which is very appropriate because I drove my Safari van. At the Visitor's Center you can purchase a bag of animal food. This comes in handy because the animals are very pushy with their demands to be fed. Like the zebras. If they don't get some instant gratification they will stick their head in your open window looking for food. The one you see above took a bite out of my steering wheel. I don't think he liked how it tasted.

I also had an ostrich get a bit aggressive. I guess there are good reasons why you are advised to keep your windows rolled up. Which seem a bit confusing to me, as in how did they expect you to feed the animals with the food they sold at the same time they were saying to keep your windows up? When I snapped this picture of this ostrich it must have thought my camera was something to eat because it lunged at it causing me to back away really fast. And then I rolled up the window.

To see more of my photos from Fossil Rim Wildlife Center go here.

Fossil Rim is near the town of Glen Rose, a very scenic town with a very cool courthouse square. Also nearby is Dinosaur Valley State Park. Outside Dinosaur Valley State Park there is this anti-evolution thing called The Creation Museum. I guess its purpose must be to prove that dinosaurs did not exist. And a new bizarre thing has been added right outside Dinosaur Valley State Park. That being another Dinosaur Park called Dinosaur World. It looked pretty lame. Sort of Flintstonesque.

Barack Obama & Reverend Wright Wrong

If I belonged to a church. Which I don't. If I went to church. Which I don't. But if I did, and the church's preacher gave a hell on wheels hate mongering diatribe sermon at high volume I don't think I would return the next Sunday. Let alone stay in his flock for more than 20 years. Or give the preacher more than $20 thousand.

If a week after 9/11 I was in an American church and heard the preacher say what America has wrought overseas has now come home to roost, that America deserved to be attacked, that America has been deserving this attack for over 60 years, ever since America dropped A-Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I don't think I would return the next week for another sermon.

If I went to a church and the preacher gave a sermon in which he said that America caused AIDS for some nefarious purpose, I don't think I would return the next week for another sermon.

If I went to a church and the preacher gave a sermon in which he derided America's treatment of a minority and suggested that that minority should not be saying God Bless America, they should be saying God Damn America, I don't think I would return the next week for another sermon.

I know I would not join a church where such things were said by its preacher. I sure would not ask that preacher to perform my wedding ceremony. I sure would not let my kids go to such a church and listen to such vile rhetoric. I sure would not say that such a preacher had great influence over me or that he gave such an inspiring sermon, named Audacity of Hope, that I decided to name my book after it.

And one more thing, if in my background I had such an obviously difficult thing to explain, that being staying in such a church, supporting such a church and saying this preacher gave me guidance, well, I know I would have the sense to know that this would be a deal breaker if I should suffer the delusion that I should run for President of the United States.

Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys and Human Rights Violations

This morning I got an email from one of the victims of Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboy Stadium Scandal. I think this is either the 3rd or 4th I've received from one of the victims. This email is the first I've gotten from one of those who are still taking Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys and the city of Arlington to court for their crimes against humanity.

Speaking of human rights. A couple days ago I reacted to the U.S. State Department's annual assessment of other nation's human rights performance. I made note that our nation is not exactly pristine in the human rights area. I also mentioned we put too many people in jail for no good reason.

And so what do I read today that supports the idea that we jail way too many people? A guy up in Ness City, Kansas had a girl friend who did not leave her bathroom for 2 years. She spent the last month literally glued to her toilet seat. With her now firmly stuck, the boyfriend finally grew concerned and called for police help. Unable to pry her off the seat they pried the seat off the toilet and took the girl friend and the stuck on toilet seat to a hospital, likely up north in Hays because Ness City is way too small to have a hospital. So, that long-suffering girl friend must have been totally traumatized to be out of her bathroom for the first time in 2 years with a toilet seat stuck to her naked rear riding in an ambulance with strangers for an hour or more.

Now here is where we get to how it is the United States has way too many people in jail. Local prosecutors are considering bringing charges of some sort against the boy friend. In other words you can get incarcerated in America for letting someone sit on a toilet seat for too long.

I just remembered another example that I heard yesterday. On Monday the trial of a woman began in Chicago. Her crime? She had saved up over 8 bucks in change. To teach her kids the goodness of helping others she loaded them into her car and drove to a Salvation Army collection spot. She parked the car, took the 2 older kids with her, left the baby in the car and walked 10 feet, I repeat, 10 feet, to the Salvation Army collector and dropped the change in the collection bucket. Unfortunately a cop saw this act of kindness and ticketed the woman for endangering her baby by abandoning her alone in the car while she walked 10 feet away. The woman faced up to 6 months jail time and a fine. One can only hope that common sense prevailed and a wise judge chewed out the cop and ordered damages awarded to the woman for putting her through such nonsense.

Anyway, below is the email I got this morning from the Jerry Jones/Dallas Cowboy victim:

Due to ongoing litigation I am not able to 'spill all of the beans' that I would like to. But the citizens of Arlington have been duped by the greediest, richest people in the land grab business.

Three months prior to the election, Arlington's highest elected official requested a 'one-on-one' closed door meeting (so that this meeting could be denied in the future) and in this meeting I was asked if 'my people' would be willing to 'donate' our property to this project. I was stopped 'dead in my tracks' on how to respond to such a request. Those of us paying for this monster will never be able to afford to go see a single game.

I don't think they ever believed that my wife and I and another owner would be willing or able to carry this out this far without 'throwing in the towel.' But we are prepared to ride this out until we are victorious!! They have illegally made law to benefit a specific person or entity, law that if you or I requested to use ourselves, would be told this would be illegal to do. But we are dealing with a portion of society that believes that they are above the law and us 'peons' of the world.

This process is just now reaching the level of the first appellate jurisdiction. I am not a lawyer so my understanding of the levels is limited. I am told that after this level is passed, the parties go on to the final level, appeals to the state supreme court, at which we will appeal using a precedent case.

I am told many get discouraged by the time they reach this level. My resolve just seems to strengthen as this reaches new levels.

Charlie S.
Arlington, Texas

Done Teetotaling

I'd been having insomnia problems. Really really bad insomnia problems. I decided this might be being caused by my drinking problem. So, I've made the decision to quit teetotaling. I've been off the stuff for 2 days now and the insomnia problem seems to be much much better.

Long ago I stopped drinking any coffee in the afternoon. For years I had to have a cup around 4pm. But then something happened to my metabolism, or maybe I just was nervously suffering from more stress. The problem did seem to arise after I moved to Texas. If I didn't have the afternoon coffee I'd develop a coffee withdrawal headache. But then one day I did not have my afternoon coffee and I had no headache and I've been coffee free, except for in the morning, ever since.

Back to the ceasing of the teetotaling. For a long time the health benefits of green tea have been touted. How it boosts the immune system, amps up the metabolism, all sorts of supposed benefits.

So, I started drinking green tea in the afternoon. Three bags worth of the stuff. It took me awhile to connect the cause to effect, but after I started drinking the salubrious green tea I started having worse insomnia issues. I knew green tea had some caffeine in it, but I didn't think it was a significant amount. Not nearly as much as coffee. Or so I thought.

And now I've stopped drinking green tea. Cold turkey. No withdrawal symptoms at all. And I slept really good last night. Except for some very disturbing dreams.

On a related side note, Wikipedia has an interesting list of people, unlike me, who are still teetotalers. George W. Bush is on that list. So is Adolph Hitler. Interesting coincidence that both share in common the teetotaling thing and a bad habit of invading other nations for no good reason.

Abusing Human Rights

Yesterday the United States State Department released its annual report on the state of human rights around the world.

China was chastised for repressing freedom of speech, religion and the press, along with prison torture and forced confessions. Cuba was criticized for prisoner abuse, life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary arrests and denial of fair trials. Russia was cited for, among a few other things, problematic elections. (See Texas Caucus Debacle)

Was it not Jesus who is reported to have said "let you among me who is without sin cast the first stone."? Did Jesus also not say something like, "don't worry about the sand in your neighbor's eye, worry about the sand in your own eye."?

I don't bring up Jesus and his supposed words due to me being some sort of proselytizer living in the buckle of the bible belt. Rather I bring up the supposed words of Jesus because many in the United States like to think of this nation as being a Christian nation. A Christian nation which somehow tends to sort of ignore basic Christian values. As practiced by the original Christian. That being Jesus.

And so how do we Americans have the gall to go about pointing out other nation's human rights violations? Are we without sin? Have we not as a nation cast the first stone a time or two?

America has more people in jail than any other nation on earth. America has a higher percentage of its people behind bars than any other nation on earth. We execute people. Who are sometimes later proved to be innocent.

In America you can get handcuffed, strip searched and thrown in jail due to a 6 year old $20 bounced check that you had no knowledge of. I really can't imagine Jesus handcuffing and strip searching someone over a 6 year old bounced $20 check. The same thing can happen to you for annoying a prosecutor by calling him an idiotic baboon. Currently, here in Texas, there are thousands of arrest warrants out for citizens who have committed no crime, but instead got in to the system for the most innocent of reasons. Innocent reasons, I say, not crimes. I wrote about this in a posting I called The Soviet State of Texas. It shocked me that such things could occur here in America, where we are the supposed champions of human rights world wide.

Did the State Department cite the United States for violating the human rights of young Americans who were sent to invade a sovereign nation for bogus reasons, where no weapons of mass destruction have been found and where, yesterday, the U.S. admitted there was no tie to Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda?

Was the United States cited by the State Department for the human rights abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad?

Did the State Department cite the United States for the practice of waterboarding?

How about for holding prisoners without charge at a base on an island the State Department did cite as a human rights abuser, the base being Guantanamo Bay and the island being Cuba?

Okay, one thing I'll admit, if I were in China, Cuba or Russia I would be afraid to mouth off about my government's hypocrisy like I'm doing here. That is a good thing. But a better thing would be if my government did not give me so much material with which to point out the absurd hypocrisy of the United State's overbearing and self-righteous chastising of other nations for their supposed human rights abuses.

Let's get ourselves a totally clean American record and then start preaching to the rest of the world. Until then the United States should shut up.

In my humble opinion.

The Village Idiot & the Texas Caucus

How totally disrespectful to call our Dear Leader a Village Idiot. Whoever made this sign should be thoroughly ashamed.

Then again there was that exchange between our Dear Leader and CBS newsman, Peter Maer, at a recent news conference in which Maer asked The One Who Does Not Read Newspapers, "What is your advice to the average American who is hurting right now, facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline."

Our Dear Leader interrupted at that point and asked, "What did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?"

Maer patiently explained that it was not he making the prediction, rather it was "A number of analysts predicting $4 a gallon gasoline."

Our Dear Leader was shocked and stunned at this late breaking revelation, saying, "Oh, yeah? That's interesting, I hadn't heard that."

And in even more shocking revelations a study was released by the U.S. Government yesterday which concluded that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Al Queda. I hope someone informs our Dear Leader before he puts his foot in his mouth again on that one. I can't remember the last time he has mentioned Weapons of Mass Destruction or declared one of his Missions Accomplished. Are the levees fixed in New Orleans yet?

On a totally unrelated note. I just returned from the library. Loyal readers will remember the library is where I voted a week ago today and returned that night to experience the Texas Caucus Chaos that still has not been sorted out.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a piece on Saturday's called CHEERS AND JEERS. On Saturday there was a CHEER that had the ladies in the library today all atwitter.

The CHEER said---"Cheers: To the staff of the East Regional Library for graciously putting up with 500 of us Democrats caucusing at the library until midnight Tuesday."

I learned about the Cheer when I asked if they knew how the caucus went. I told them I'd tried to participate but bailed when I saw that it seemed to be spinning out of control. I told the librarian there were more than 500 people there, when I bailed, and more were arriving. She told me that the Cheer was also wrong about the time, that the caucus actually lasted til past 1am Wednesday morning! That is way past my bedtime. I don't think I've stayed up that late in this century. I don't know if I've stayed up past midnight since Christmas of 1994 at Disneyland. That was exhausting. But at least there were fun rides.

I mentioned I had called 911 when I saw things were spiralling out of control. The librarian told me police arrived and started ticketing people who had blocked others in. I told her it was the election workers who told people to park anywhere, especially if they were trying to vote and needed to get in line before 7pm.

So, I guess I will never know how many people actually made the attempt to vote at the East Regional Library. I'm amazed that 500 made it til, at least, midnight. Much more determined democracy participants than I. That or they are more driven than I to make sure we have a good replacement for our current clueless Dear Leader.

The Pacific Northwest Drives People Crazy

I go through phases of what type book I read. Like I came home from a road trip where I'd been to many battle sites of the Indian Wars and started reading books like Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. If you've not read that one, you should. It tells you what really happened during the settlement of the west, not the propaganda version we learned in grade school.

And then there was my WWII phase, mostly books about the Nazis, like Inside The Third Reich.

A constant genre for me is the true crime book. My favorite true crime writer is Ann Rule. With Jack Olsen a close second. He's dead now, and was never as prolific as Ms. Rule, but his way of telling the story varied from book to book, like last month I read Jack Olsen's Rat Dog Dick. It seemed more like a novel than a non-fiction true story.

Currently I'm in the middle of Jack Olsen's "I" The Creation Of A Serial Killer. It's the story of yet one more Pacific Northwest serial killer, a Canadian named Keith Hunter Jepperson. Apparently the Jepperson serial killing took place while I was still living in the Northwest, but I've no memory of this particular story. Jack Olsen was allowed to interview the killer at length. Much of the book is written in the first person in the voice of the killer. I've not seen this in a true crime book before. It's kind of creepy.

If one were to extrapolate from my personal experiences it would seem if you live in the Pacific Northwest you likely have had personal connections to serial killers.

I was going to school at Central Washington State College when Ted Bundy took Susan Rancourt from the school library and killed her. That was near the start of Ted Bundy's serial killer career.

Spokane had a serial killer, that I also don't remember, that took place while I lived in the Northwest. This killer operated during the same time frame, sort of, as the Green River Killer. With so much killing going on it's easy to see why one can't remember them all. Anyway, the Spokane Serial Killer's name is Robert Lee Yates. I have a personal connection to him too. He grew up in Oak Harbor, Washington. That is a short distance from where I lived. He went to SVC at the same time I did. But I don't recognize either his face or name. And one of his earliest murders took place in the Skagit Valley. I lived in Mount Vernon in the Skagit Valley.

And then there is the Green River Killer, the worst serial killer in United States history, with at least 71 victims. The Green River Killer is a sicko named Gary Leon Ridgway. He worked at a truck parts manufacturer called Kenworth. My oldest sister worked there with him. Kenworth had a company party for workers and their families at this theme park called Enchanted Village. I was at that company party. So was Gary Ridgway. This was well before he began his killing spree.

Geez, I'm being as absurd as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram with these "personal" connections to serial killers. Well, at least I'm aware that I'm being absurd, so I guess that makes me less absurd than the Star-Telegram.

Speaking of absurd. I had no idea that the world is suffering from an epidemic of serial killers. Wikipedia has an article listing serial killers by country. I was surprised by how many Canadian serial killers there have been. I was not too surprised to see that the United States had the longest list of serial killers. With, I am assuming, the majority coming from the Pacific Northwest.