You At 50: AARP Video

The American Association of Retired People (AARP) had a contest titled "U @ 50." The below video won 2nd place. It is quite good. Very clever. The video was submitted by a 20 year old.

The Bush Regime Ends Today

I suspect there will be some partying today, around the world, with the end of the Bush Regime finally here.

I hope George slept well on his last night in the White House. I did. After yesterday's insomnia bout, this morning I slept in til past 3am.

I needed to be up early today. I have to take a Puerto Rican to the airport so she can fly to Miami, then San Juan, then Ponce, where her 82 year old Mom will pick her up to take her to her hometown of Coamo.

Coamo, Puerto Rico is known for its hot springs. And being the location of a big battle during the Spanish-American War. Miss Puerto Rico does not know that that war is why her island is part of the United States. I find people not knowing such things to be perplexing.

By the end of today George Bush will be starting his exile in Texas. I think he is heading to his ranch in Crawford, not his new home in Dallas.

I'm considering today to be the actual start of the New Year.

Happy New Year!

MLK Day Insomnia in Texas & Naked Bart Simpson

I have been up since about 2 this morning. I went to bed early. I did not have any nightmares, like during my last insomnia bout, where I was chased by 6 monster women trying to eat me.

The National Weather Service has issued a Red Flag Warning in effect til 6pm. A Red Flag Warning means the conditions are right for wildfires, as in it's dry and windy. So far, I smell no smoke.

For the past few days, AT & T I-verse has been having all their pay to view channels running free. That meant what appears to be a couple hundred versions of multiple HBO, MAXs, Showtimes and others were viewable and recordable.

Consequently I watched large parts of Suburbia and The Simpson's Movie. Maybe too much uninterrupted Homer wrought havoc with my ability to sleep. Or maybe it was that extremely long, Bart, full frontal nude skateboard scene.

Anyway, so far it's been a rather low energy Martin Luther King Day. Usually I celebrate by doing something altruistic. Right now I can't remember an example.

I read my Tacoma nephew's blog this morning. They are all sick. I have not been sick in a long time. Sleepless, yes. Sick, no. When I was up in Tacoma I tried to instill in those boys and their parents the salubrious benefits of washing their dishes with hot water and soap. I warned if you don't do this you risk getting all sorts of viruses and bacteria.

Now, I wash all my eating equipment in extremely hot water, with extremely potent dishwashing soap, to the point that I reach hospital level sterility. Hence that not getting sick thing. Maybe, now, with this most recent bout of ailing, those Tacoma nephews of mine will finally take heed of their uncle's wise advice.

And right now I don't need to hear from you boys, bragging about how easily you can fall asleep. All day long.

Fort Worth's Endangered Marvel of Modernism

At the north end of Fort Worth's downtown there is something known as Heritage Park. When I moved to Fort Worth, Heritage Park was the first thing I saw in the town that impressed me as a good thing.

Heritage Park was supposed to be a sort of memorial to the founding of Fort Worth. It was a complex set of stairs, catwalks, overlooks and water features.

You may have noticed I used the past tense "was." Because for well over a year the city of Fort Worth has had Heritage Park surrounded by ugly cyclone fencing. And "Closed Signs."

Go here to see the current sad state of Fort Worth's Heritage Park.

The excuse given for this civic neglect is that people were scared to go in the park due to homeless people hanging out there. And its water features were expensive to maintain. There has been no attempt, as far as I know, to fix this park that has become an eyesore, yet one more blight on Fort Worth's self image as a town that is the envy of other towns, far and wide.

Heritage Park is adjacent to a police building. It would seem that regular patrols could have easily been made of the park. Better lighting could have been installed. Along with surveillance cameras.

Seattle has a similar park, called Freeway Park, considered a precedent setting park of the same nature as Heritage Park. Freeway Park had some crime problems. Seattle fixed the problem. Freeway Park did not close. Go here to read the Wikipedia article about Seattle's Freeway Park and how Seattle modified the park to make it more secure.

The Cultural Landscape Foundation has released their annual list of Endangered Marvels of Modernism. Heritage Park, in Fort Worth, is on the list.

" Boston City Hall Plaza, Boston, MA
" Estates Drive Reservoir, Oakland, CA
" Heritage Plaza, Heritage Park, Fort Worth, TX
" Kaiser Roof Garden, Kaiser Center, Oakland, CA
" Lake Elizabeth, Allegheny Commons, Pittsburgh, PA
" Manhattan Square Park, Rochester, NY
" Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks, Kent, WA
" Miller Garden, Columbus, IN
" El Monte, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico
" Pacific Science Center Courtyard, Seattle, WA
" Parkmerced, San Francisco, CA
" Peavey Plaza, Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN

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....