I Know No Mean People In Texas

I like the true crime genre, although lately I seem to have gone deep into the political book genre, with my favorite of that genre being Richard Nixon's In the Arena. No matter what you think of Nixon, I think you'd find this an interesting book. It was like Nixon in gossip mode.

One chapter is devoted to drinking, with Nixon telling stories about the drinking habits of all the political figures he'd met. Celebrities too. John Wayne came for a visit, I think it was after the resignation, when Nixon was recuperating from his near death bout. Nixon asked John Wayne if he'd like a drink. Sure, gin and tonic. Well, Nixon couldn't find the tonic. I forgot what he used instead. And he made it heavy on the gin. John Wayne took one sip and said "that's a damn fine drink."

Nixon was one complex guy. The chapter about Pat was very touching. I think I almost shed a tear. And the way he wrote about his grandkids was poignant and funny. He was quite proud that his grandkids were proficient with computers and video games, while Nixon confessed to being baffled by both.

Nixon had a reputation of being a mean, bad man. I don't think he was, mean, I mean. Yes, he may have done a few bad things, that he came to regret, but he was not mean.

I got an email today telling me about the latest troubling shenanigans of a notoriously Mean Person we know in common.

I don't have much tolerance for Mean People, you know, those sorts who say things just to be Mean. It doesn't have to be truthful, usually it isn't, being Mean is the main criteria.

I haven't experienced all that many Mean People, but the ones I have known, have no scruples. They will out and out make up lies to buttress whatever Mean Thing they are saying. Mean People have no concept that they bring on themselves the reactions they get to their Meanness, as if they think they are under some sorta of immunity blanket.

As in, Mean People think they can say the most outrageously Mean Thing, in reaction to the most minor of stimuli. Yet, when their victim puts the Mean Thing into perspective, in an attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible, well, the Mean Person gets all bent out of shape and even Meaner. Mean People have trouble with mirrors, either verbal or physical.

The epic hypocrisy of the Meanest Person I've known, is the most outstanding trait of that particular Mean Person. This Mean Person has absolutely no sense of the irony of what comes out of this Mean Person's mouth. It can be astonishing. This Mean Person can go into full bore Mean Person mode, attacking another person in the most scathing way, while acting as if the Mean Person has no idea why the Victim of the Meanness gets fed up and does some bitch slapping. It's kind of funny to observe.

The Mean People I've known have not been very bright. Not being very bright may contribute to being Mean. All the smart people I've known have been Nice People. Nice People never act Mean. Probably because they're too smart to be Mean.

I sort of feel sorry for Mean People. That has to be a miserable way to go through your day, feeling all Angry and Mean. But then again, part of being Mean is pretty much lacking what most would consider to be a fully developed conscience. The lacking of a conscience and any ability to feel remorse for the hurt feelings the Mean Person leaves in their wake, let alone to make amends for the damage left behind in their wake, is what makes them a Mean Person. If the Mean Person had a conscience they would not be a Mean Person.

I guess what I'm saying is Mean People are sociopaths. They should all be locked up or banned to some big island somewhere, like Australia or Antarctica and leave all us Nice People in peace in a world without Mean People.

I hope Barack Obama has the banning of Mean People on his agenda. That and keeping obese people off planes.

Saturday At Tandy Hills Park & Lemon Curd

I decided against going to the Stock Show Parade this morning. I figured it'd be too cold. I was wrong. I just got back from hiking at the Tandy Hills, that's the Tandy Hills noonish view of downtown Fort Worth, with it being in the 60s and quite pleasant.

There is another drawback to going to downtown, when it's busy, which it seldom is, nowadays, as opposed to my last time going to the Stock Show Parade, due to easy parking being no more, due to the now defunct new Radio Shack Corporate Headquarters removing the huge free parking lots and free subway that connected the parking lots to downtown.

A couple days ago I blogged about the oodles of lemons my Mom & Dad left me and me not knowing what to do with them. Then discovering a Lemon Curd recipe, which came out well, which had me asking if anyone knew what one does with Lemon Curd.

That day, or the next, someone named Shirley commented, telling me, "Put it on toast, silly."

Well, this was one odd coincidence, because my Mom's name is Shirley. I'm sure this Shirley was not my Mom, because, first off, my Mom can't see a webpage. And second off, Mom would have signed the comment "Mom," not "Shirley."

So, Shirley, if you are reading this, thanks for the toast advice. This morning I made French Toast and that Lemon Curd stuff was real good on it.

I found out this morning, after the Lemon Curd French Toast, that I get to go to the airport the morning of Inauguration Day. Miss Puerto Rico is flying to her home island for a week and needs to be delivered to her plane. I better make it back here by 10am or I'll be cranky.

Texas Testicular Cancer Awareness Day

For what seems months I've been hearing ads on the radio for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk For The Cure, taking place a long time from now, in November in Dallas.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation works to find a cure for breast cancer. There is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I was curious if there is a National Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. Or a Week. Or even a Day.

Well, there isn't.

Something called "Get A Grip!" has something called Testicular Cancer Awareness Week the first week of April. But, it's not a "National" week.

So, I'm declaring today, January 17, 2009, Texas Testicular Cancer Awareness Day.

I think I mentioned it before, once or twice on this blog---I remember for sure mentioning it during last summer's Olympics, when much ado was made of swimmer Eric Shanteau's decision to postpone testicular cancer surgery, til after he swam---that I am a 23 year testicular cancer survivor. There are a lot of us. Like Lance Armstrong. He's going to try to win the Tour de France again.

I can see the value of a National Testicular Awareness Day, Week or Month. Back when I had it I did not know such a cancer existed til it was a plotline on TV's St. Elsewhere. I believe the show that focused on testicular cancer aired in early December. At that point in time I'd discovered a lump that I didn't think was right.

Early in the following February, the Seattle P-I ran a story about testicular cancer. From that story I was pretty certain that that was what my lump was. But I felt healthy, I jogged every other day. How could I have cancer?

Well, about 2 weeks after the P-I article I was jogging and I could tell something wasn't right, like the testicle zone felt real heavy.

I made an appointment with a Urologist the next day. He asked a few questions, felt the lump, turned somber, scheduled an operation in 3 days. I was forbidden to drink coffee the morning of the operation, the doctor was real late, they had me on a pre-op drip, I had a miserable coffee withdrawal headache that went away as soon as the anesthetic hit my brain.

I woke up after the surgery to find a nurse holding my hand. I instantly asked if it was cancer. Then a doctor said, okay, I guess we know you're fully alert. I was told it was cancer.

I later learned I had 2 types of testicular cancer, anaplastic seminoma and embryonal cell. I may be spelling those wrong. They are both the most treatable types of testicular cancer. The tumor had a high necrotic factor. Meaning, perhaps, that my immune system was already killing it.

Testicular cancer has one of, if not the highest, cure rates of any cancer.

I'm not going to detail the rest of my medical treatment, because I went the unconventional route and I would not want to influence anyone to go the route I took, even though I, apparently, made the right choice. Knock on wood.

During the period after learning you have cancer you feel sort of in a state of limbo. I went through the stages of adjusting to it real fast. When you face the fact that your time on the planet might be coming to an end sooner than you'd hoped it does tend to change your view of things. The only thought that could get to me, in that period, was the idea that I might not live long enough to see my little nephews grow up. The 4th one had not even been born at that point in time.

Well, I not only got to see them all grow up, I saw the oldest one get married and have a baby of his own.

Are you a man between 12-50, or are you a son, brother, father, mother, spouse, or friend of someone who is? Know this:

There will be 7,920 new cases of Testicular Cancer diagnosed during 2009 and 380 young men will die from the disease because they didn't catch it in time. That is more deaths than women in this age group who will die of breast cancer.

The main thing to be aware of on this Texas Testicular Cancer Awareness Day is early detection gives you the best chance at a good outcome. Do a self-exam at least once a month. If you find a lump that didn't used to be there, get yourself to a doctor immediately.

Gar the Texan's Random Ramblings

I know this good ol' Texas boy, known as Gar the Texan, born and reared way out in West Texas in the town of, I think the name is, Kermit.

Gar the Texan eventually escaped West Texas, married a German and became a world traveller. Which has made him quite worldly. And wise.

In Gar the Texan's most recent blogging he makes reference to me, saying (I may be paraphrasing here), that he seldom agrees with me, but I'm a smart fellow who he can tolerate listening to and that he may have learned a thing or two from reading my blog. Also, because I'm Dutch, I have an aversion to Germans.

To illustrate what Gar the Texan believes are my strange opinions about Europeans, Gar inserted an amusing YouTube video into his post. I thought the video was so good I'm going to stick it on this post. So, you don't have to go to Gar the Texan's blog to see the video....

Barack Hussein Obama & Osama

I was talking to one of my dullard friends this afternoon and he made the observation that has been made by millions, that similarity between our new President's last name and the last name of America's Public Enemy #1 Osama Bin Laden.

As I sort of dozed off to my own thoughts, as the dullard droned on, my thoughts went back to 2001, the days after 9/11.

If back in those days, that really do not seem all that long ago, if back then, someone had told me that George W. Bush would be President til 2009, that America would occupy both Afghanistan and Iraq in 2009, that America would help bring about the execution of Saddam Hussein, that in 2009 the new American President would be named Barack Hussein Obama and that the new President would be African-American, this would have struck me as being an unlikely scenario.

Well, I don't think many of us Americans, back in 2001, would have been able to imagine a scenario that would have us having a new President, a man few of us had heard of in 2001, last named Obama, middle named Hussein, African-American, a scenario that has the vast majority of us quite excited to have Barack Hussein Obama becoming our new President. With most of the World also on board, looking forward with positive anticipation to the New America that is about to reach out to the World in a way much different than the past 8 pitiful years.

I'm looking forward to Tuesday. I watched neither of the Bush inauguration festivities. Previous to Bush I watched every inauguration day in my living memory. Bush is the first President, in my memory, who I don't believe I watched a single news conference. I did watch his State of the Unions. In pain.

US Airways Hudson River Landing

If you'd seen it in a movie, you would have thought it a real stretch in the believability department. I don't recollect the last event that caused me to think it was some sort of miracle, but this crash of US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River, after taking off from New York's LaGuardia Airport, then running into a flock of geese that killed the engines, forcing the emergency landing in the water, with no one killed, is definitely a miracle.

And, apparently, the miracle came about in no small part due to the pilot's calm skill, in addition to the flight crew's, equally calm skill, at doing their jobs to perfection.

But, what crossed my mind when I read about how the passengers remained calm, for the most part, how they made an orderly exit from the slowly sinking plane, was this....

Now, I may be going, once again, into totally politically incorrect territory here, but what if one or two of the passengers had been of the hugely obese sort? Would we have had such a happy ending? What if there had been a hugely obese person onboard, and that person happened to be out at the end of a wing, upon getting out of the plane, causing the plane to tip, like a teeter totter?

I really think it is time to have a universal ban on oversized people getting on a plane. It is not fair to the other passengers, both for safety and for comfort sake. I know I would not want to be seated next to someone who oozed into my seat. I believe if that happened I would make a fuss and ask to be moved.

It may sound harsh, but I believe if a person allows themself to get into a fat state of bloatedness, due to self indulgent overeating, that they should expect not to be allowed to do some things. Like sit on certain pieces of furniture. Or use certain types of public transportation.

The rights of the majority, with the majority of us not being hugely overweight, outweigh the rights of those who's sloth has put their own health at risk, to endanger us who have not. It's that simple.

A Message from the Children of Carter Avenue

Are you kidding?

16" gas pipelines?

Under our front yards where we live and play?

Please help us have a safe place to live and play.

PLEASE don't let Chesapeake Energy pass gas under Carter Avenue!

---

At the kid's request, this message was delivered to FWCanDo and then forwarded here. The photo is by Steve Deoung who lives on Carter Avenue in Fort Worth and who spent this morning in a Fort Worth courtroom, trying to protect his kids, his house and his neighborhood. You can email Steve Deoung here.

The Battle Of Carter Avenue: In Court Today In Fort Worth

Incoming Call For Action From Don Young:

What would you do if Chesapeake Energy tried to force you to sign a document that would allow a 16" (or larger) natural gas pipeline to be bored under your home or front yard?

A Tony Soprano kind of offer that you better not refuse?

Your property marketability would instantly disappear. The safety of your family would be greatly diminished. Your homeowners insurance might go way up or be canceled.

What if they sent heavy-handed reps to your workplace to get you to sign? Pretend, for a moment, that you are a low income person who may not have a firm grip on the English language. Is your job in jeopardy if you don't sign? This has happened to at least one Carter Avenue resident.

How would you feel if the City of Fort Worth aided and abetted Chesapeake to pave the way for such a pipeline? Reportedly, the city owns 4 lots on Carter Ave. and has signed the pipeline right of way agreements on those properties. Would that make you feel that it must be safe or the city would not have done so?

These are some of scenarios playing out on Carter Avenue in east Fort Worth. They come to a new head Friday morning, January 16, 2009.

Carter Avenue resident and homeowner, Steve Deoung, one of the last holdouts to signing, refuses to be intimidated by Chesapeake into signing an agreement that would threaten the safety of his and other neighborhood children and put the value of their homes at serious risk.

His court hearing tomorrow morning in Judge Vince Sprinkle's Tarrant County Court #3 will decide his motion to dismiss the case due to improper filings by Chesapeake.

Click here to go the court's webpage

Mr. Deoung is trying to buy time to keep this legalized crime from happening. He needs your help. Please show him your support by appearing at the hearing and/or sending a pledge of financial support.

Click to Email Steve

The children of Carter Avenue need to know you care.

George W. Bush Final Primetime TV Interruption

In less than an hour, America's Primetime Television airwaves will be interrupted for the final time by George W. Bush. I may watch. I may not. I may forget.

This week's FW Weekly has an interesting article about George and his legacy. That's the cover of this week's FW Weekly on the left, with George in a cowboy hat. You probably could have figured that out for yourself.

Go here to read the FW Weekly article. It'll likely only be readable for a week, replaced next week by next week's feature article. So, if you are reading this past January 21, you likely won't be seeing this particular article about George W.

George W. Bush. I remember back in 1998, in the month of May, coming to Texas to see if there was any remote chance I wanted to move here. We'd been to the Stockyards, came back, the TV was on. An ad came on. There was the Governor of Texas, seeming smarmy, about what, I do not remember.

When the chatter started up about George W. running for President I did not take it serious. I remember saying, "there is no way he can be the Republican candidate, all the Democrats would have to do is show the rest of America all the bad stuff in Texas and proclaim, do you really want George W. Bush to do to all of America what he's done to Texas."

Little did I know how prophetic my words were.

Some time back I remember reading someone somewhere write that Texas is to America what America has become to the rest of the World. In that a lot of the world sees America as too full of itself, too cowboy, too loud, too sure of itself, too cocky, too unaware that there are other parts of the world where freedom rings, where people live well, where proud cultures thrive. Where they know the American Way is not the only way.

Before George W. Bush tarnished America in the World's eyes we were seen by the vast majority of the World as the World's brightest light. America dominates the World as no culture before has. Before George W., this domination was in a good way.

Today, not so much.

Beginning in about 5 days, I suspect America will be back being the America the World, for the most part, loves. Daring to go where no other nation has gone before. America using its power for good, to make the World a better place. America with a leader the World looks to with hope and admiration and awe.

It's been a long long long 8 years.

In all my decades on the planet this is the first time I've found myself totally discounting and despising my President. George W. is a man who should never have had the keys to the Oval Office. That is obvious now. It will be obvious 20 years from now.

It pleases me, that it is likely George W. will live long enough to realize that his hope that history will treat him better than the current times, turned out to be erroneous. Like pretty much everything else he thought to be true.

2009 Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo & Parade

This coming Saturday, January 17, the Fort Worth Stock Show starts up with the biggest non-motorized parade in the world. That means it is a no vehicle parade, everything moves by foot or hoof.

We are very cold here in Fort Worth today and tomorrow, but it is supposed to warm up a bit by parade day with a high of 62 on Saturday. I don't remember if it was last year, or the year before that, that the Stock Show Parade was cancelled due to below freezing temperatures. And ice.

I've only been to the Stock Show Parade twice. I liked it both times. Texas puts on very good parades. I've actually never seen a parade in Texas that I did not like. I've seen two good ones in Granbury, those being General Granbury's Birthday Parade and the Granbury 4th of July Parade. I've seen the Arlington 4th of July Parade twice. I think it's the biggest in Texas, which likely makes it the biggest in America. I really liked the Ennis Polka Festival Parade. It was so good it was as if some Hollywood script writer was making it up.

I've been to the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo one time, my first year in Texas. It was interesting, but I don't think I'm much of a rodeo fan.

I've been to the Stock Show, itself, only one time. It is like a state fair. Not as big and busy as the State Fair of Texas, but it is still a good fair. The weather can be the most vexing part of the Stock Show, it being winter. But I prefer dressing up to stay warm to dressing down to stay cool, like you have to do at the Dallas fair on a hot fall day. It's easier to stay warm when it's cold than it is to stay cool when it's hot.

I may try and make an effort to go to the Stock Show Parade on Saturday. If I do, I'll take my video camera along.

Go here for more information about the Fort Worth Stock Show.