Category Archives: Texana

Space is a place

Posted on April 20, 2012 | Comments Off on Space is a place

I covered the first landing of the space shuttle in 1981. The first space ship. They did real work, hauling satellites to orbit, until the Challenger explosion in 1986. After that, it was busy-work and and increasingly boring. And the disintegration of Columbia over Texas in ’03 showed it was still dangerous.

I remember the shuttle-inspired first flush of private rocketry in the early 80s, the grandiose predictions that never came to pass. Now, with the inevitable retirement of the circa-1969 technology shuttles, the grandiose predictions are back:

“The future of space is in the hands of the guys behind Amazon, PayPal, and Virgin [and Google]. The force of competition will create endless possibilities and unimaginable technologies. No more talking about how the space program brought us Tang and Tempur-Pedic mattresses. We’re going to Mars, baby, in business class.”

Will this sort of thing now come true? Much as I wish it would, I can’t help doubting it. Time will tell.

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Posted in Science/Engineering, Space, Texana

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Behind those gas prices

Posted on April 11, 2012 | Comments Off on Behind those gas prices

According to this analysis, the high price of gasoline has more to do with the closing of some East Coast refineries and a glut of pipeline oil in Oklahoma, than Uncle Barry’s refusal to allow increased oil and gas production.

But presidents always get the blame for things like high gas prices, whether they deserve it or not. In this case, I think he deserves it. And they usually don’t get re-elected. Whether it will stop the re-election of the first “white” African-American president, however, remains to be seen.

Via Instapundit.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, Science/Engineering, Scribbles, Texana

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Ima, Ura & Hoosa Hogg

Posted on April 8, 2012 | Comments Off on Ima, Ura & Hoosa Hogg

Every now and then, somebody wanders in here searching for Ura Hogg.

It’s an old Texas joke, folks. There was no Ura. No Hoosa, either.

But there certainly was a Miss Ima. And, besides being gorgeous, and the daughter of a governor, she was a great philanthropist, too.

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Posted in Scribbles, Texana

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Tornado memories

Posted on March 17, 2012 | Comments Off on Tornado memories

As a recovering journalist, my memories of the job come and go, some quite indistinct—like this tornado recollection I left at JD Allen’s place not long ago:

“I ‘chased’ one in the Panhandle one time so the photographer I was working with could get a decent shot of it. He was driving. We were about a mile from the thing and it was very big and very black and moving very fast on the ground. I was very tempted to bail out, but he was driving too fast. Fortunately he took his shot and [we] got the hell out of the way.”

It’s so flat up there, just miles and miles, as someone has said, of miles and miles. But my favorite spot still is Happy, the town without a frown. One grain elevator, though. And a cookbook.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Scribbles, Texana, Weather/Climate

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The latest edict from our federal overlords

Posted on March 15, 2012 | Comments Off on The latest edict from our federal overlords

Texas has long required presentation of a driver’s license, or other photo i.d., in order to vote. Prove you’re a citizen with a right to the privilege. What could be more sensible?

Not to Obamalot’s “justice” department. You know, the guys who shipped automatic rifles and hand grenades to Mexican drug lords and are still lying about it? They claim voter i.d. discriminates—presumably against felons and illegal immigrants.

Texas pols will complain and threaten not to comply, but the feds will threaten to take away highway construction money from the second largest state and that will be that. Land of the fee, home of the slave.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, Scribbles, South of the Border, Texana

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LBJ the bully: prolonging the Vietnam War

Posted on March 13, 2012 | Comments Off on LBJ the bully: prolonging the Vietnam War

In 1965, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended bombing Hanoi and mining Haiphong Harbor to avoid a protracted ground war in South Viet Nam. President Johnson screamed at them, cursing them and calling them idiots.

“Why had Johnson not only dismissed their recommendations, but also ridiculed them? It must have been that Johnson had lacked something. Maybe it was foresight or boldness. Maybe it was the sophistication and understanding it took to deal with complex international issues. Or, since he was clearly a bully, maybe what he lacked was courage.”

He certainly was a bully. He bullied his own wife, repeatedly, according to his biographers. So the ground war went on and on, literally consuming their country and figuratively consuming ours, not to mention LBJ himself, and it lingers yet as a bad taste all around. No wonder people, even people here in Texas, still hate the sumbitch.

Via The PJ Tatler.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Scribbles, Texana, Viet Nam

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Jury Duty, yech

Posted on March 10, 2012 | Comments Off on Jury Duty, yech

Jury duty is our duty as citizens, right? I suppose. I certainly have the time, if not the inclination, to play the courthouse game on April 2, the date I’ve been told to report to the Travis County courthouse downtown to receive a court assignment.

Allegedly. Allegedly, because I expect to be cut from the jury pool, after walking multiple blocks from wherever I can find a place to park, for the usual reasons: too much education, relation to a law enforcement officer, thirty-five years in the news media, and blogging since then about, among other things, politics and public policy.

The defense lawyers of my aquaintance tend not to want people like me on their juries. I’m not as easy to impress as someone else with none of the above. So I expect to spend an unpleasant day in the courthouse where the linoleum halls are perfumed with the sour flop-sweat of old fears; to be herded about at the whim of self-important functionaries; and, finally, to have to pay a hefty parking ticket because I won’t be allowed to feed the meter.

Although I would like to be wrong.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Scribbles, Texana

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