German U-Boats Sink Ships Off Texas Coast
German U-Boats Sink Ships Off Texas Coast Buried in the back pages of a Houston newspaper in July 1942 was a matter-of-fact account of the sinking on the sixth of the month of a cargo ship “somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.” German U-boats were unquestionably on the prowl off the coast of Texas, but there was no reason to get folks all riled up about it! Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, seashore inhabitants of the Lone Star State had a bad case of the jitters for the first time since the Civil War. The United States was at war exactly a month, when Galveston staged a blackout and ordered total darkness for the duration in a three-block strip along the beach. The island was a beehive of activity in early 1942 as the military worked frantically to strengthen its defenses. Galveston Army Air Field was established by the Air Corps, while the Army stationed 2,500 troops at Fort Crockett, Fort San Jacinto, and Fort Travis on Bolivar Point. Those bastions bristled with 10-and 12-inch guns as well as antiaircraft batteries. But the enemy never came, and the only casualties were the windows of nearby homes shattered by the concussion from the test firing of the artillery. Out in the Gulf, however, it was a different story as German submarines or U-boats stalked the busy shipping lines. At 11 o
Wild Life
Wild Life We
Another SCOTUS Fumble
Another SCOTUS Fumble When our former non-leader, King George XLIII, nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito as frontman and back-up, respectively, for the Supremes, I opined that both possessed neither courtroom nor real-life experience sufficient for the task of deciding everyday issues that affect American citizens. Time and again, since these two were seated, decisions emanating from the Supremes have been attestations of their insular viewpoints. SCOTUS, in its current configuration, has shown an overwhelming proclivity to come down on the side of what could be referred to as “the establishment” rather than the individual. Of those cases which seem too “controversial,” the Roberts
A Straight-Shooting Pastor
Whenever I write a column about guns, I get at least a few responses from people who don
Overcome Your Fear Of Heights With The Help Of A Flugtag And A Flying Monkey
Overcome Your Fear Of Heights With The Help Of A Flugtag And A Flying Monkey It
Texas Constitution, Lawmakers, And Why They Don’t Work
Texas Constitution, Lawmakers, And Why They Don’t Work It’s a vicious cycle. The Texas Constitution was written and approved in 1876. A lot of people say it isn’t working well. Lawmakers spend a lot of time working around the provisions of the constitution so they can approve various bills, mostly for their special interests. The point is that if they are spending so much time successfully figuring ways to get around the provisions of our state constitution, it can’t be working well for the people of Texas. An interesting fact is that the Texas Constitution has had more amendments added to it that has the U.S. Constitution. A lot of people also say that our lawmakers are not working well either. If they spend so much of their time working around the provisions of the state constitution, how can they work in the best interests of the Texas community? Lawmakers are fond of saying that they propose bills to fix things only if they are pressed to do so by voters. Some of the urgent issues needing resolution have remained for the past decade: sky-high property taxes, financing public education, high costs of health care, special interest driven toll roads, the highest premiums for home insurance in the nation, etc. Here’s the fallacy. The public should NOT have to demand fixes for urgent issues. That should be the priority of the Texas legislature. In addition, every two years or so lawmakers drum-up amendments to the Texas Constitution whether or not they are really needed. Usually the proposed amendments get approved anyway. Most of these approved amendments are for special interests who have paid various lawmakers to get them approved. So, what about the average residents who can’t pay lawmakers to work for them. Why should they have to? Isn’t the reason lawmakers are elected is so they protect the public’s best interest? So, what happened? How did the system get so out-of-control? Money, greed. power and corruption. That’s how. In my humble opinion, the only way to fix such an ailing system is to provide lawmakers with a decent salary AND prohibit private campaign contributions, perks and gifts. Perhaps only then will lawmakers do the jobs they were hired to do by the people of Texas. Will it happen? It is very doubtful because as soon as someone proposes that option the special interests will pay lawmakers to forget about it. It’s a vicious cycle. Okay, so what can the public do to get lawmakers to work for them? Apparently, the only way to get lawmakers to do anything is to bang-down their doors, drown their phones with calls, and send emails and letters “up the kazoo”. Until voters make more demands on lawmakers they will continue to circumvent the provisions of the state constitution and will only work consistently for their special interests. That is the nature of Texas politics and it’s not changing for the better in the immediate future. (Peter Stern of Driftwood, Texas, <pstern@austin.rr.com>, a former Director of Information Services, university professor and public school administrator, is a political writer well-known and published frequently throughout the Texas community and nationwide. He is a Disabled Vietnam Veteran and holds three post-graduate degrees.)
The Growing Colossus
The Growing Colossus “You
Opium Eradication In Afghanistan Continues Despite U.S. Shift
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Daily Show: CIA Enlists Wall Street To
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y.
Holidays Cause Cancer
Holidays Cause Cancer As Uncle Hugh used to say, “Celebrations are just whiskey with an excuse.” I hate holidays. Anyone with any sense of decency hates holidays. Holidays are the primary source of domestic violence. And most psychological disorders. Holidays are, I surmise, also a leading cause of cancer. Holidays are a thinly disguised artifice imposed upon capitalists by laborers who are keenly aware that capitalism is foist upon its twofold petard: patriotism and religion. Nationalism and superstition, for the truly cynical among you. But capitalists, never to be outdone, wreak revenge by insisting on increased production, “so we won
Let Trans-Texas Corridor Die: TURF
AUSTIN, Texas
China, Hummer Deal Breaks Over Pollution
BEJING, China
Police Raid Enrages Gay Community In Texas
FORT WORTH, Texas
Groups Files Complaints Against CIA
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The Power Of Positive Dunking — Mavs’ Layoffs Slam Economic Hype
Mavs’ Layoffs Slam Economic Hype DALLAS, Texas You know reporting on the economy is still bad when you have to flip to the sports section. In the Dallas newspaper. Moreover, you know that the economy is still bad when the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball franchise laid off a few in its workforce late last month. Don’t worry no actual basketball players were harmed. Only eight employees on the “business side” of the organization’s 200-plus personel were given pink slips, said owner Mark Cuban. “The economy has a stranglehold on everybody, and it’s no different for the Dallas Mavericks…,” wrote reporter Eddie Sefko in The Dallas Morning News Saturday, June 27, edition. “The franchise has been operating under a hiring freeze for several months,” he added. “But with all professional sports teams facing problems with fewer sponsorships and drops in season-ticket renewals, many of them have had to reduce their workforce.” This news, however, is one of many slams against a fiscal quarter worth of hype that the economy as a whole is improving. Economist Dean Baker has pointed out that the mainstream media has all along been playing us like we were the Washington Generals. In his piece “Economic Recovery Is Wishful Thinking,” the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. gave two examples of fudged figures that he later described as evidence of “cheerleading” not honest reporting on the state of economy. One: National Public Radio fudged new home sales figures for the month of April, saying they were up from March when they were in fact down, he said. “While this was true, the April figure was only 1,000 higher than a March level that had just been revised down by 5,000. April new home sales were 4,000 below the sales level that had originally been reported for March,” Baker wrote in early June. Two: USA Today misrepresented durable goods orders as a “surge,” even though the figure was “based on a sharp downward revision to the prior month’s data,” he added. Baker quipped, “This leaves the responsibility of reporting on the economy to others.” So his prognosis? “Any serious examination of the data shows that recovery is nowhere in sight. The basic story of the downturn is painfully simple. We have seen a collapse of a housing bubble which has devastated the construction sector and also caused consumption to plunge,” he wrote. In other words, no one is consuming because they be broke as a joke! Plus, American families and businesses can’t buy anything on credit because it’s all totally maxed out. So don’t buy the “green shoots” economic recovery propaganda touted by investment giant Goldman Sachs. If anything, those are “yellow weeds” cracking open our economic system ever wider, according to New York University economist Nouriel Roubini. Roubini predicted in his piece “Ten Risks to Global Growth“ that spending due to President Barack Obama’s stimulus package will create a “short-term growth revival.” <
