FDR, IKE, JFK, LBJ, NIXON & BHO

As far as I know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was our first President frequently referred to by his initials, as in FDR. I assume this came about due FDR's long last name having 3 syllables.

I know some people, like Richard Nixon, refer to FDR's cousin Teddy as TR, but I don't know if Teddy Roosevelt's contempories did.

FDR's successor, Harry S Truman, did not become known as HST. The S between Harry and Truman is not the first letter of his middle name. Truman's middle name is a middle initial. With no period after it. Why, I do not know.

Truman was followed by a President with a long last name, but he did not become known as DDE. Instead he was known as Ike. Ike was Dwight David Eisenhower. Ike sounds better than saying DDE.

Ike was followed by JFK. Who was followed by LBJ. LBJ had a fairly short last name. But I think people liked the sound of saying JFK and so they segued easily into Lyndon Baines Johnson being LBJ. It worked great for anti-war chants, as in "Hey Hey LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?"

LBJ was to be our last President known by his initials. Nixon followed him and while there were some instances of him being referred to as RMN, it just did not stick. Mostly, I suppose, because Nixon is a nice short name with a punch to it when said aloud, like Hitler.

Nixon was followed by Ford. Again a short name. Then Carter. Again short. I think Jimmy Carter's middle name is Earl. That'd make him JEC. That just looks weird. Jimmy Carter was followed by Ronald Reagan. I do remember seeing Reagan referred to as RR a time or two, but that definitely did not stick. It was just way to easy to say Reagan, a good short name, like Nixon and Hitler.

Reagan was followed by Bush. No need to call him GHWB. Bush was followed by Clinton. Again a nice 2 syllable name that has a punch to it, so it was Clinton, not WJC. That would have looked to much like the initials for Water Closet.

Of course, Clinton was unfortunately followed by another Bush. Who was never referred to as GWB, but sometimes the, to be retired tomorrow, Bush was referred to as W.

Tomorrow the world breathes a sigh of relief as W is replaced by Barack Hussein Obama. I'm fairly certain he will not be referred to by his initials. BHO sounds too much like HBO. And if you take the middle name out you are left with BO. And that definitely would not sound Presidential.

Roman Philosopher Cicero Predicting The Future

I've mentioned several times that Alma, the Songbird of the Texas Gulf Coast, sends me a lot of real amusing, interesting stuff. Every once in awhile Alma sends something that just seems too good to be true.

Like this morning.

An email with a quote from the Roman Philosopher, Cicero.

In the subject line it said, "What have we learned in 2 Millennia?"

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

Cicero - 55 BC

And then the punch line to the what have we learned question, "Evidently Nothing!!!"

The 2 red flags for me were the part about assistance to foreign lands and people living on public assistance. Rome occupied foreign lands and extracted wealth from them. Rome didn't operate an American style foreign aid program. Rome had a lot of slaves, there was no welfare program.

Several websites deal with this erroneous Cicero quote. With several people saying they liked fictional Cicero.

The closest Cicero came to uttering the fictional quote is when he said, “The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall.”

Despite the fictional quote not being what Cicero said, the punch line sure rings true. It does seem, at times, that in 2000 years the world has evidently learned nothing. Or very little. We had religious crazies killing and maiming people back then, we have them now. Only now they have machine guns and rocket launchers. And Internet websites.

Polite Texas 8th Grader Asking Permission First

Fairly frequently I get an email asking permission to use some of my photos from my Eyes on Texas website.

Usually the request comes from a student.

One time it came from a restaurant decorator wanting Fort Worth images to put on its wall.

Another request came from Backpacker Magazine. They wanted to use a picture of a Longhorn in Wildflowers that I took by the west end of Lake Grapevine. One time the request was for a charity coffee table type book featuring Waxachachie. I think I said yes to everyone but the restaurant designers. I didn't see why he should use my pictures for free. And he wasn't willing to pay anything for them.

Sometimes I learn someone has hotlinked to one of my photos. That annoys me. It's like stealing, with them using my server bandwidth to put my photo on their webpage. When I find one of those I alter the photo and upload both the original and the altered one to my server. Sometimes it takes a long time for the photo thief to find the picture has been changed.

Today I got an email from an 8th grader named Tiffany, politely asking for permission to use some of my Dallas photos.

I'll paste Tiffany's request below. It's nice to see we're getting some kids being taught well, here in Texas, coherent, grammatically correct and with no spelling errors. If only I could manage all three of those attributes.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am an eighth grader at Livingston Junior High in Livingston, Texas, and I am writing to request information for a school project.

My class is involved in a large project called "Business Professionals of America." This project has many different categories of competition such as keyboarding, spreadsheets, prepared speech, etc. and i am participating in web site design. Every year this project follows a theme set by the Business Professionals of America office, and for the 2008-2009 school year our theme is "The Top Ten Things To Do In Dallas." For this project, we are required to design a web site rating the top ten things to do during your stay in Dallas.

I am writing to ask for written permission for the use of the pictures on your website. If this would be possible, it would be extremely helpful. I appreciate your time and assistance. Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,
Tiffany Shelby

Six January Executions In Texas

Last week, on Wednesday, we had our first execution of the year, here in Texas.

A Fort Worth man named Curtis Moore got the lethal needle for murdering three people in Fort Worth in a particularly brutal fashion, with two of the victims shot and thrown on a Fort Worth street. Then 2 other victims were driven to another part of Fort Worth, shot, set on fire and left in a car to die.

Darrek Wayne Hoyle survived the shooting and the fire, but with very bad burns which left serious scars, visible when he watched the execution of the man who tried to kill him.

Five more are slated for the lethal needle this month here in Texas, putting us on track to keep our #1 spot as the state with the most executions. There are 8 executions scheduled this month in the United States. Six of those 8 are in Texas.

The Taliban & Mentally Ill People Everywhere

That's an Afghan Taliban killing an Afghani woman. The Afghani woman had committed the horrendous crime of having polish on her fingernails.

What sort of twisted world do we live in where there are barbarians like this? It's not a capital crime to murder someone, but it is a capital crime to wear fingernail polish.

In this morning's Dallas Morning News there was an article about the Taliban in northwest Pakistan banning female education. More than 40,000 girls have been kicked out of school.

In their ultimatum, the Taliban warned parents against sending their daughters to school, declaring female education to be "un-Islamic."

In one week, this past December, the Taliban beheaded 13 people. Many people in the Pakistan Valley of Swat are fleeing the Taliban, included policemen, leaving the area even more lawless.

How do humans get so twisted and backwards all in the name of their religion? Why is there no high ranking Islam Ayatollah type person who orders these idiots to knock it off?

To me if you are in a gang that goes around murdering women because they have polish on their nails and beheading people for equally stupid reasons, well, it's just insane mental illness.

I've dealt with mental illness up close and personal. Mentally ill people are usually absolutely sure of whatever ideas and beliefs their degraded thinking produces. There is no reasoning with them. They have no sense of responsibility for their actions and behaviors. They believe anything they do is okay.

If you find yourself having to defend yourself against a mentally ill person, they never understand that their behavior brought on the defense. The Taliban are equally self-righteous. America has been blasting them for years, with America justifiably mad over 9/11, and the Taliban just continue on, doing their evil deeds.

The only way to stop them is to kill them. America kills them for killing others. Not for using fingernail polish.

Now, what to do with the non-killer type mentally ill person? We used to lock them up. Now only the most serious cases are institutionalized. Now, way too often drugs are used to control the bad behavior. That has not seemed a very good solution either, from what I've seen.

I think maybe the best solution might be move them all to the Taliban controlled zones of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I'm Leaving Texas And Heading To Oz

This coming July I'm planning on ending my Texas Exile for 6 months to be exiled in Australia instead.

As in for 6 months I'll be living off the coast of Queensland on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, my homebase will be on Hamilton Island, which is part of Australia's Whitsunday Islands.

I'll be working for Tourism Queensland. My job is "Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef." But I really won't be doing any caretaking.

What I will be doing is explore around the islands, above and below water, going to places like Qualia on Hamilton Island for a spa treatment, do some bushwhacking, feed some fish, fly with the aerial postal service and whatever I feel like doing.

And taking video and pictures of what I see and do. Then writing a blog about my ongoing 6 month experience, with a video diary and photo gallery.

And now for the best part. Tourism Queensland is paying all my transportation costs, plus all my other costs while on the islands. And on top of that, they are paying me $100,000, for 6 months of fun. If some emergency comes up, back in the states, I can fly back to attend to it. But at my own expense.

You can go here and see what my new home zone looks like....

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....