Aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

Dodged a Bullet

 

I worked like a dog to help the evacuees of Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans. Then it was our turn to stare at a Category 5 hurricane.

 

Hurricane Rita hit at the Sabine River, near the Louisiana border. A mere 100 miles separated us in the Houston area from total disaster and 130 mph winds.

 

Last night as Rita moved in we had high winds here on the western edge of the storm; the “clean side,” so I can only imagine how fierce it was in Port Arthur that took the hit on the “dirty side” along with western Louisiana.  Rita even broke a levee in New Orleans, re-flooding parts of the city. 

 

We dodged a bullet.  We lost power for only 7 hours and that was enough “camping out” for me. Confusion continues and people are streaming back into town although the Mayor has requested they “stay put” to keep the highways clear for emergency responders and clear power lines, debris, etc.

 

And a huge problem became evident in Rita’s wake.

 

Here we live in a major gas refining area -- and yet we have no gasoline in the city!  In fact there isn't much gas for hundreds of miles around us. It could be days before supplies come in.  The lack of gas stranded thousands of people for hundreds of miles around Houston.

 

Clearly the Texas emergency plan has some serious defects, despite all the post 9 11 planning.

 

Nearly 3 million people evacuatedthe Houston area.  We could see the same traffic jams coming back into the city. 

 

A friend of mine is from Port Arthur. He may not have anything to go back to--several feet of water has filled the streets.  This isn’t over yet…

 

The good news - we found a Chinese restaurant open this afternoon. What a nice break from hot dogs and can food!  Most of the stores remain closed. It has been like a Grade B movie. 

Future of Terrorism

Yesterday I spent an hour in front of a video camera. It is being made to send to police and fire departments across the U.S. on terrorism.

Our first responders are on the front lines here, but they are also the "tail of the dog" since they have to deal with issues that arise because of something going in somewhere else in the world.

In other words, they have to clean up stuff that they don't create. Our own leadership may jab a stick in a global hornet's nest or miss the problem entirely -- and it will fall to First Responders to deal with the consequences if it results in a 9 11 or Tim McVeigh.

I can't cover an hour of video here, but you can review some ideas at the Texas Viking blog and the Congress website links.

Texas Viking Blog starts

The campaign part of this is moving to a new blog called:

Texas Viking at:

www.TexasViking.blogspot.com

Check it out. This blog will address other issues. Hey, I'll think of something.

Rain and the Drumbeat of Politics

After a postcard perfect weekend it is RAINING. We needed it.

I received a call from a Fox TV national crew last Thursday as I was pulling into Richmond to pick up my wife from art class. They were from out of town and wanted an interview to see if I was going to be Tom DeLay's GOP challenger.

Funny, but I havent' sent out a single press release and yet the media have been calling this year (I had to chase them in prior years).  They seemed keen on the upcoming meeting with former GOP Rep. Pete McCloskey set for this weekend.

Pete's "Revolt of the Elders" is designed to get rid of some of our corrupt (for lack of a better word) leaders, including DeLay. We'll see what happens but Fox wanted to know all about it.  Heck, we'll see. I'm not counting any chickens. But they did air the interview tonight on the Fox cable channel - and a couple people I know called and said it was great.

I wouldn't know. I don't have cable. LOL.

All I do know is that my new TV production company signed to do a story on a Gold Medal winner within three weeks of being established -- and Global American TV did its first commercial taping yesterday (for a group of concert bands) in Houston. My first camera operator was a professional videographer (a woman) who did a great job. Compared to legal work it was Fun!

Economy still sucks for most people I talk to. Collecting has been like pulling teeth (no, pulling teeth would be easier). I wonder if our government leaders with their guaranteed paychecks and lobbyist buddies shoving checks in their pockets have a real clue what it is really like for most Americans today, paying robber baron prices for gas and seeing jobs disappears over the border...? I doubt it.

I finally took time to get a haircut. I was beginning to look like the wild man from Borneo.  Ummmm. That's probably what my old poltical rival must think he's dealing with....it certainly has been raining on DeLay's parade (in the press). More later. LOL.

Pope is Gone, My Computer has joined him. SPRING is here

A sad week is finally over. It was impossible to do anything worthwhile last week as the final arrangements were made for John Paul II.  I covered it in an article published last friday and available at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlobalAmerican/

My computer joined the pope. First the hard drive died. Then it got a bad software program and turned to black again. My rule is to always have a back up so I switched and kept going.

Big rain this morning. Have to hit the "mobile office" and make the rounds today. People are calling from all over the country, trying to get me into projects --even asking if I will run against one of our most powerful politicians. We'll see. LOL.

Later...

Spring - Bring it on

Yesterday morning, Minou, 8 pounds of attitude in a cat - surprised me by leaping onto the bed, walking over me as if it didn't matter - and put her little nose right in my much bigger one. I've seen her get a 100 lb bully dog to back down, so I knew what I was dealing with.

"Get up!" was her obvious command. Early on a sunny Monday - I complied.

I know better than to deny the "Paws of Death" her morning breakfast. Besides, I had a lot to do this week and at least it wasn't raining, which just makes you want to sleep in and let the world roll on.

My move from law to film continues - first program will be on a young kid from a modest home who became an Olympic Gold Medal winner. Details are still being worked out so don't want to mention names yet.

RAIN coming, today and tomorrow. Still scrambling. Minor was right - I have no time to lose sleeping in. Incredible things seem to be breaking the routine, thank god.

More later...

The Smell of Napalm in the Morning

Maybe it was realy the smell of rain, and change. Woke at 6 to lightning flashes and thunder.

A huge storm was rolling in, just in time to hit commuters trying to get to work. Fortunately, my commute was less than 20 feet to hit my study and check the weather radar on the computer.  It was easier than wading through 4-6 inches of downpour.

Pres. Bush met with Mr. Putin today in Bratislava, Slovakia, the place where L's oldest son Jon did a work study. Tense meeting. Russia has been backsliding on democracy and pitching opponents into jail, helping Iran build a nuke plant, etc. My concern is that they have the most small nukes of any country - over 10,000 and not all secured that well. Needless to say, you have to wonder if Putin would care a lot if a terrorist got one that was used against the U.S. It certainly would give the ex-KGB leader a big leg up on the U.S. which is already spending inself into a financial hole. Putin would love to make Russia an empire again, so he wouldn't be sad to see us fall (and perhaps provide a secret shove in that direction). Our future dealings with Russia are as critical as what happens in Iraq, China, etc. because the zealots like bin laden are sitting near Russia's back door.

While Bush yakked with Valdimar, I was making an unscheduled run to the vet with Lexie, the wonder dog, who developed a bad cough in the past few days. She's rarely sick so it was obvious she needed attention. 

Hundred pound Henri would insist on going too, so we had to trick him into staying in the house while we got Lex in the car and off to the vet for an examination. Turns out, she had an infection, so Lex got pills instead of giving a press conference on doggie democracy. She is so friendly with the neighborhood kids she could charm the Russian wolf hounds. Henri the Big Dog would just eat them, especially if they weren't nice. I guess they are the "good cop," "bad cop" team.

It appears to be a whole new G Bush in Europe, trying to make friends with France and Germany. Better late than never.  Especially with Russia looking like a wolf in sheep's clothing. 

We'll need all the friends we can get to worldwide avoid even worse potential terrorism coming to the U.S.  Recent TV shows like "24" and "Dirty War" have finally addressed how it could happen --a dirty bomb or nuke meltdown caused by terrorists in the U.S. I've been writing and warning about this since before the first bombing of the WTC. It's good to see the media is catching up.

I hope that the possibility of a nuke attack in the U.S. remains fiction -- but we have to change our ways and get a lot smarter (fast) to avoid worse days ahead. Diplomacy and intelligence are as vital as bullets in the outcome.

A Day of Homeland Security training

The alarm went off at 5 a.m., which is not an hour I'm really familiar with on a Saturday. I had committed to spend the day at the Squadron doing air training, so I needed to be there sharp for a 0700 briefing. I didn't get to do much of this last year because of the Congress campaign.

The sky was clear but a front was forecast to roll in and I wasn't sure if I'd get to do everything I needed to stay qualified as a Mission Pilot. The nuke plant at South Texas almost had a release a couple days ago I kept thinking we needed to have detection gear for our aircraft to make survey flights in case people needed to know.

I ended up being a co-pilot observor on one sortie and flew as pilot on the other. We responded to a simulated terrorist attack on an airport, took digital photos and did an ELT beacon search for a simulated downed aircraft.

We were turning steep 360's at 1,000 feet. At that angle it's hard to see oncoming aircraft.  On the way back to base my co-pilot casually said at one point: "The other plane just passed below us about a 100 feet - going in the opposite direction." Whew. Another USAF plane was running the same mission and ended up on the same patch of sky--like two cars passing each other at a high combined speed. We need anti-collision devices on these planes, but I have to get more influence before anything will happen on that. I happened to be flying about 100 or so feet ABOVE the attitude my co-pilot had requested. Lucky for 6 of us in two planes.

For some reason nice people kept stopping me today, in between flights, once when I had to pop in a store to get some chap stick - and another on the way home when I ducked into a Kroger to buy my wife a dozen roses ( her daughter had announced today that she was thinking of getting a divorce so I figured I better show up with roses to try to improve the mood around the house). One guy insisted I go ahead of him in the line when I was buying the roses.

The rains are coming in tonight. A lot is happening I can't talk about yet. Anything could happen.

Stay tuned...

Forced prostitution of children - Time to stop it

The Boxing Day Tsunami has brought to light a dirty global secret - the forced prostitution of children and women worldwide. Many children orphaned by the Tsunami are at risk - by male predators from the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere.

It could be your daughter or young son being abused by these global gangs. It is happening to girls or boys their age. The U.S. needs to make this a priority as much as any problem presented by the Middle East, North Korea, etc. It will require a global effort to prosecute the predators and break up the gangs.

Social security is being touted as the latest crisis, but it has funds until 2018. Child prostitution is a 2005 problem; it is happening TODAY. 

If you are a young woman, look out. Young women, and girls, are being offered fake jobs that end up being a brothel. The problem is spreading - from Asia, East Europe, Central America, etc. And the predators are often middle aged American and Europe men -- many who are professionals with a very dark, twisted side.

Help me stomp this out. It will take global effort. The United States is the only country other than Somalia that has not signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. That would be a start...

And I intend to take whatever legislative, legal and public relations action necessary to protect these kids from sex predators.

Again, visit the web site at: www.Legal.Bigstep.com

Pass it on.

 

Foggy Start - NEW Year 2005

Awoke to FOG for first day of 2005. Foggy or not I was happy to see a whole new year. 2004 rolls out in the path of massive death from the Boxing Day Tsunami that hit a dozen countries and killed over 100,000 and counting...

Want to know what to do? Check out the New Year's Eve

Global American article at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GlobalAmerican

If you like, sign up for the newsletter. It's my way of trying to let Americans know how events in the world affect us, whether we are paying attention or not...

Happy New Year.