Up, Up and Away

Pixar goes 10 for 10
How does Pixar do it? An amazing string of classic, critically-praised, hit films...

Toy Story - 1995
A Bug’s Life - 1998
Toy Story II - 1999
Monsters Inc. - 2001
Finding Nemo* - 2003
The Incredibles* - 2004
Cars - 2006
Ratatouille* - 2007
WALL-E* - 2008
Up - 2009

* Won Academy Award for Best Animated Feature

The Academy Awards didn’t not have a best animated feature category before 2001. That first year they passed over Monsters Inc. to give the first award to Shrek - which was a crime in my opinion.
The Academy messed up again in 2006 when they passed over Cars and gave the Oscar to Happy Feet.

A good day at the Texas Legislature

Texas Democratic Senators held together today and rejected the reappointment of rightwing lunatic Don McLeroy to be the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. That is wonderful news for all of Texas’ school children. The bad news is that Rick Perry is still the governor and there is speculation that he will simply try and elevate the equally looney Cynthia Dunbar to the chairmanship now. But nevertheless, I am proud of the Texas Democrats for standing up for public education in our great state. As for the Republicans.... well, there is nothing I can say that is suitable to print on my blog.

In other good news, lawmakers were able to salvage the CHIP expansion legislation and the windstorm insurance legislation by adding them as amendments to House bills. Meanwhile the Republicans Voter ID bill that was the cause of the delays is now dead as is Jeff Wentworth’s criminally moronic guns in schools legislation. Thank GOD!

Knocking down attacks on Sotomayor

While it seems clear that Sonia Sotomayor will sail through her confirmation hearings with little opposition, there will still be concerted efforts by some Republicans to tear down her nomination with the ultimate goal of trying to force President Obama to spend his political capital in her defense. And also as a fundraising tool to help motivate the Republican base, naturally.
To that end I expect we will see a lot of the same attacks repeated over and over again. So here are a few links to help counter some of those attacks.

About that out-of-context quote where she seems to say that Latina women are better at making decisions than white men: Conservative blogger Rod Dreher looked at the whole speech and determined that he was wrong to jump to that conclusion:
I was wrong about Sotomayor speech - Crunchy Con

As for the conservatives on the Supreme Court reversing some of her appeals court rulings: Rachel Maddow obliterates that one completely.

And the charges of being an “activist judge” are taken apart here.

An interesting side note, it turns out that Sotomayor is only the seventh person to be nominated to the Supreme Court by a Democratic President in last 57 years. By contrast, there have been 17 Supreme Court positions filled by Republican presidents during that same period. The current nine-member court has just two justices appointed by a Democrat.

It’s all so clear now!

Thank you Congressman Culberson! It’s all so clear now.
Rep. Culberson Offers Incoherent And Illogical Stance On Gay Marriage

Obama picks Sotomayor

Obama picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) - Officials tell The Associated Press that President Barack Obama intends to nominate federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor (SUHN’-ya soh-toh-my-YOR’) as the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court.
Sotomayor, 54, would succeed retiring Justice David Souter if confirmed by the Senate. The officials spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because Obama has not yet announced his decision.

WooHoo! What do you know? Obama took my advice!

This is great news if true because it puts a well qualified person on the Supreme Court while satisfying three key constituencies all at the same time: Women, Hispanics and Liberals.

Texas Lege update

The guns on campus bill in the Texas Lege was declared dead a while back when it failed to meet a key House deadline. And yet, it may have been brought back from the dead like Frankenstein’s monster thanks to a vote in the Senate. It is disheartening to think that 20 state senators kowtowed to the gun nut lobby and supported this monstrosity, but that just shows you the power that the extreme right-wing NRA has over the GOP today.
The bills seeming resurrection has local GOP blogger Andres excited and he is trying to drum up support for its passage. But House sponsor Joe Driver is quoted today saying the bill is on “life support.”
There was a good Letter to the Editor in the Express-News today that said it well:

Putting an unknown number of guns on Texas campuses defies common sense, yet (Sen. Jeff) Wentworth said: “I don’t want Texas college students picked off like sitting ducks by some deranged madman who comes on campus with a weapon.”
Here’s some news for Wentworth: Many Texans believe, as I do, that a person in the 21st century who thinks it is necessary to carry a loaded concealed weapon everywhere he goes is himself pretty “deranged.”
Bottom line: Go to college to teach and learn. Leave your guns at home.

It is inexcusable that lawmakers would allow private schools to opt out of this rule but not give public university officials the same option. I can tell you right now that I won’t be sending my kids to any school that allows non-law enforcement and security people to walk around with loaded guns.

In other news, the Lege will soon take up the reappointment of rightwing lunatic Don McLeroy to chair the State Board of Education. Hopefully, the Democrats in the Senate will stand up for public school children and face down the rightwing ayatollahs who want to turn our public schools into their version of the Taliban.

And speaking of the Religious Right, I just saw this interesting bit of news.
Imagine if a “liberal” university had decided to ban a student Republican organization. Imagine the hue and cry that would result. Will we hear any protests over this move?
Probably not. The “so-called Liberal Media” is too busy covering speeches by Dick Cheney; interviewing Newt Gingrich and following Sarah Palin’s every move to notice.

Local blogger update

Good news from my conservative blogging buddy Nick Marinelli. He is on the mend and could be up and walking again soon after losing part of his left leg. Nick has had some serious health problems recently stemming from kidney disease and diabetes.
Nick also has a good review of the new Star Trek movie.

Finding Beatles music

I’m back on a Beatles kick again. For about a year, I had almost no Beatles tunes on my iPod, having excised them to make room for newer music. I have one of the original iPods with just 4 GB of space. That’s room enough for about 1,000 songs, which is plenty, but when I fill it up with every Beatles song, every Bing Crosby song and all my jazz stuff it leaves little room for everything else.
So this week I redid my song list and put most of my Beatles music back on the iPod. I have what I consider to be most of the essential Beatles recordings on cd - Abbey Road, Sgt. Peppers, White Album, Revolver, Rubber Soul, Help!, Hard Day’s Night, Let It Be, Yellow Submarine, Magical Mystery Tour - and in addition I have all three volumes of the Beatles Anthology series and the two-disc Beatles Live at the BBC collection. But that still leaves out a lot of their early music including some of my favorite songs on the Rock & Roll Music compilation that got me hooked on the Beatles in the first place.
This is the track listing for Rock and Roll Music:

1. “Twist and Shout” (Medley-Russell)
2. “I Saw Her Standing There”
3. “You Can’t Do That”
4. “I Wanna Be Your Man”
5. “I Call Your Name”
6. “Boys” (Dixon-Farrell)
7. “Long Tall Sally” (Johnson/Penniman/Blackwell)
8. “Rock and Roll Music” (Berry)
9. “Slow Down” (Williams)
10. Medley: “Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” (Leiber/Stoller)/(Penniman)
11. “Money (That’s What I Want)” (Bradford/Gordy)
12. “Bad Boy” (Williams)
13. “Matchbox” (Perkins)
14. “Roll Over Beethoven” (Berry)
15. “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” (Williams)
16. “Any Time at All”
17. “Drive My Car”
18. “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” (Perkins)
19. “The Night Before”
20. “I’m Down”
21. “Revolution”
22. “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
23. “Helter Skelter”
24. “Taxman” (Harrison)
25. “Got to Get You into My Life”
26. “Hey Bulldog”
27. “Birthday”
28. “Get Back” (album version)

I have mentioned my facination with the Beatles before and particularly my introduction to the band through the Rock and Roll Music compilation. The songs are all fast-paced and upbeat and full of energy. Some of the best rock vocal performances of all time are here in my opinion - John Lennon on Twist and Shout and Slow Down - Paul McCartney on Long Tall Sally and I’m Down. And even the tunes sung by George and Ringo simply give John and Paul ample opportunity for excited screaming and background harmonies.
I wore that album out a long time ago and have been trying to replicate it ever since. Of course, being a cheapskate I didn’t want to spend $20 a pop buying the albums I would need to get all of those songs, so I have scoured the used cd bins at Half Price Books and searched online. Alas, Beatles recordings rarely show up in the used record shops and the songs are conspicuously unavailable on iTunes. Although many of the songs I needed are on the Anthology collection or the BBC Live series, they are alternate recordings and not the ones I remembered listening to over and over and over again.
So I finally decided to break it all down and see what I would need to buy to get the songs I wanted. As it turned out, I really only needed to to get two more albums - Please Please Me, the Beatles first album which has Twist and Shout and I Saw Her Standing There; and Past Masters Vol. 1 which collects all the songs that were issued as singles or EPs and never appeared on any of the Beatles’ albums. Using some Barnes and Nobles gift cards I got for Christmas, I was able to finally get the cds I needed. There are still a handful of songs I don’t have, but the alternate versions on the Anthology or BBC recordings are satisfactory for right now.

Why I’m not bothered by Obama’s recent “flip-flops”

President Obama has done a number of things recently that have alarmed and troubled many of his supporters on the left. He has opposed efforts to establish a “truth commission” that would delve into Bush administration abuses and alleged crimes surrounding the torture and detention of prisoners in our custody; he has changed his mind about releasing graphic photos of the mistreatment of prisoners under U.S. control; he has decided to restart the military tribunals at Guantanamo that he had earlier condemned under Bush/Cheney (albeit with better protections for the accused) and he has continued to prosecute the war in Afghanistan in an aggressive manner, even calling back a general to take charge who still has a cloud hanging over him from the scandal over the above-mentioned abuses.
I’m not going to defend all these decisions or say that they are the correct moves. They could very well prove to be mistakes on his part. I don’t know.
But what I find refreshing and reassuring about these moves is that it demonstrates that, unlike Bush, Obama is NOT an ideologue following an agenda chiseled in stone. What it shows me is that Obama is not so filled with self-assurance as Bush was that he cannot be persuaded to change his mind when presented with compelling evidence. I may not like all the decisions on their face, but I have to accept that he has a lot more information than I do.
Bush, as you may recall, never seemed to change his mind about anything. Commentators frequently acted like this was a good thing, but it clearly was not. Bush was a die-hard ideologue and a true believer in his own righteousness who lived inside a bubble of like-minded people providing continuous positive support and feedback. Bush never changed his mind because he rarely, if ever, was exposed to contrary or competing information and even if he was tended to disregard it as false or heretical.
Obama, on the other hand, is not afraid to engage people with differeing views and constantly strives to find common ground. I like the fact that his views are not set in stone and that he will make the best decision at the time based on the best possible information. I did not vote for Obama because I agreed with him on every single position and I do not expect that he will always do everything just the way I think he should. I voted for Obama because I respect his intellect and his judgement and I want him to use it while he is in office. If he makes some bad decisions and some mistakes, that is to be expected. He can also correct those mistakes more quickly if he is not locked into a misguided ideology.
People who supported Bush, however, did not want him making his own decisions. They wanted him to go strictly by the book - that being the wingnut playbook which has failed miserably everytime it has been enacted. And Bush did just what they wanted in spades. He followed their playbook to a T. Unfortunately for Bush, and all the rest of us as well, the playbook led us into our current economic disaster as well as our foreign policy quagmire. And even more unfortunately for Bush, he has now been abandoned by all the true believers who refuse to accept that their ideas don’t work and now claim that Bush was not a “true” conservative and did not follow their playbook faithfully enough.
I would much rather have a president who is willing to “flip-flop” on occasion rather than staying the course even when it means driving us over a cliff.

Bad bills

A lot of bad bills bit the dust last night up in Austin and I couldn’t be happier.

Casino gambling crapped out. Texas hold ’em had to fold ’em. Hands-free cell phones in cars crashed. And handguns on campus bit the bullet as the first major legislative deadline started killing bills.
All were pieces of House legislation that had to be debated by midnight Thursday or else hope of passage in this year’s legislative session vanished under House rules heading toward the June 1 closing.

I’m most especially happy to see the heinous “Guns and Campus” legislation get deep-sixed. I’m am terribly frustrated with Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, for sponsoring the Seante version of that bill. Wentworth is someone who I have long respected in spite of his being on the other side of the political aisle from myself. But this bill was too much. My wife teaches on a college campus and the last thing I want is for her to have to be in a classroom with a lot of stressed-out, gun-toting students.
I am also no fan of gambling because far from being a panacea of resources for cash-strapped governments, it tends to prey on the poor, the desperate and the downtrodden. And social problems aside, it does nothing to contribute to the economy other than suck up discretionary spending money that people might have used more beneficially elsewhere.

I once thought Texas was kind of backwards for having just a part-time Legislature that meets only every other year. But seeing the bad bills that come out of Austin these days, I am thankful that they don’t have more time to get stuff like this passed.

Being realistic, cold and clear-eyed

Steve Benen points to a comment on Andrew Sullivan’s site which does a good job of spelling out my take on the whole torture prosecutions debate:

Imagine what such prosecutions would entail: years of courtroom drama, depositions, lawsuits and counter-suits; the long parade of powerful and high ranking ex- and current members of government, including a goodly number of Democrats, being called on the carpet and having to testify against one another; the enormous rancor and bitterness. This would be Watergate on steroids. And imagine the shot in the arm this would give the zombified Limbaugh Right.
The prosecutions you are asking for would simply swallow the Obama presidency whole. It is the kind of energy draining, oxygen consuming drama that is the nightmare of every president. It would come to define his presidency in the same way the Hostage Crisis defined Carter’s and there is zero chance he will opt for this.
President Obama is making a realistic, cold, clear-eyed cost-benefit analysis. This is the choice: Does he fix the economy, fix healthcare, get a handle on the two wars he’s dealing with, or does he prosecute Bush era war crimes? He has chosen his agenda and is asking us to choose that to.

I agree. Obama can’t allow his agenda to be sidetracked by the inevitable media circus that would result from launching such prosecutorial pursuits. I don’t care if Congress conducts its own investigations - which they are already doing - but Obama needs to keep his focus on the problems at hand. There will be plenty of time later to deal with this. Heck, we’re still deporting Nazis from WWII!
But the last thing I want is for Obama’s efforts to fix the economy to be impeded and have him not be able to accomplish the things he needs to do during his first term. The worst thing that could happen is to have Obama get bogged down in something like this, accomplish nothing and then we end up with a Republican Congress and President Mitt Romney in four years.

New filibuster rules needed

Today the Republicans in the U.S. Senate managed to filibuster President Obama’s nominee for the No. 2 post at the U.S. Department of Interior. The nominee, David Hayes, previously served in the Clinton administration and is well qualified for the post. There is nothing controversial about him whatsoever. And yet, Republicans voted in lockstep to filibuster Hayes’ nomination because some Western state Republicans are upset with the Obama administration’s decision to cancel some oil and gas leases in Western states.
First off, this nonsense has got to stop. The filibuster was once a weapon of last resort for the minority party that would be trotted out only on very rare occasions. But in recent years, it has become common place to the point that every single vote in the Senate now has to be passed with a super-majority of 60 votes.
This just isn’t right. In fact, it is completely upside down. Let’s look at the vote on the Hayes nomination. It was 57 to 39 - thus Democrats were three votes short of breaking the filibuster - Ted Kennedy is out sick, John Kerry was attending a U.S. soldier’s funeral, and Al Franken is being blocked by sore loser Republicans in Minnesota.
But what about this 39 votes on the Republican side?!? They couldn’t come up with 41 votes in opposition? And yet they still succeeded in blocking the nomination?? How is that fair?
At a bare minimum the rules for filibusters should be changed to put the onus on the minority party to come up with 41 votes to support the filibuster, rather than always forcing the majority to line up 60 votes to knock it down. If the minority party can’t muster 41 votes on a cloture rule, the filibuster should be declared void and the nomination should immediately go to a full up-or-down vote. End of story.
It is simply unfair and undemocratic to do it any other way.

A senseless tragedy

There was a truly horrific story in the Houston Chronicle over the weekend. A family that had gone out on a dirt road to swim at a levy were shot at by a couple who claimed they were trespassing. A 7-year-old boy is dead now as a result.
The story is infuriating because it was so senseless. You look at the picture of the couple that did the shooting and the place where they were living - complete with Confederate Flag and a grammatically-challenged sign that reads “Trespassers will be shot. Survivers will be reshot!! Smile I will.” - and one is immediately struck with the worst stereotypes of backward, ignorant, Redneck, white trash.
Where did these people get the idea that they could just go up and shoot anybody who stumbles onto their property? Do they sit around all day listening to rightwing hate radio? Do they get riled up by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and then feel justified to go out and do exactly what their misspelled sign says?
What is the difference between this couple and some minority gangbangers in an urban slum who shoot at people for being in their “territory” without permission?
This was a horribly senseless tragedy. A boy is dead. A family is devestated and this couple will now spend the rest of their worthless lives in jail, assuming they don’t get the death penalty.

Local talk radio radicals

Sometimes I am shocked by how radical the local wingnut radio talk show hosts are. This morning while driving in to work I was desperately flipping the dial trying to avoid the bi-annual NPR pledge drive and ended up on the Trey Ware morning show on KTSA. I’ve always assumed KTSA was the more moderate alternative to the Fox-affiliated WOAI, which broadcasts Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck, but after listening to Trey Ware talk about the U.S. tax system for 30 minutes I am no longer so sure. First, it is maddening to hear Ware, who has absolutely no formal education in economics or government, lecture his audience about the marvels of tax cuts. I wanted to throttle the guy and scream “What do you think Bush did for the past eight years!?! Tax cuts and more tax cuts and all we got was massive deficits and a weak economy that nosedived into a major recession.

Republican death spiral

Political Wire points to the latest cover story from Time Republicans in the Wilderness: Is the Party Over?

“As the party has shrunk to its base, it has catered even more to its base’s biases, insisting that the New Deal made the Depression worse, carbon emissions are fine for the environment and tax cuts actually boost revenues -- even though the vast majority of historians, scientists and economists disagree. The RNC is about to vote on a kindergartenish resolution to change the name of its opponent to the Democrat Socialist Party. This plays well with hard-core culture warriors and tea-party activists convinced that a dictator-President is plotting to seize their guns, choose their doctors and put ACORN in charge of the Census, but it ultimately produces even more shrinkage, which gives the base even more influence -- and the death spiral continues.”

Historians, scientists and economists...... Ha! All LIBERALS!!!!!
Or so says the Republican Party’s “base” today, the ones that party leaders are pandering to.

And this headline that has been on CNN for the past two days really struck me -- Colin Powell comment angers Limbaugh
Like, WHO cares what Rush Limbaugh thinks??? Here you have a former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who is one of the most admired men in America and CNN is running a headline like anyone should care that a rightwing radio blowhard didn’t like something he had to say???
But then one has to remember that Rush Limbaugh is now the defacto leader of the Republican Party and so his efforts to drum people like Powell and Olympia Snowe out of the party is newsworthy under the circumstances.
But if this goes on for too much longer, the Republican Party will be so small and insignificant that it won’t matter even then.

Gov. Perry betrays public education

The San Antonio Express-News had a good editorial this weekend criticizing Gov. Rick Perry’s boneheaded decision to reappoint Don McLeroy as chairman of the Texas State Board of Education. McLeroy is a certifiable nutcase who believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible — the Earth is thousands of years old and not millions, he says — and uses his position on the SBOE to tout creationist nonsense and to undercut the public education system in favor of homeschooling at every opportunity.
The fact that Perry appointed this rightwing nutjob to the chairmanship in the first place is bad enough, but now he wants to extend his term as chairman through 2011. Fortunately, there seems to be some resistance to this move in the Texas Legislature. But I would also remind the Express-News editorial writers that they are once again being hypocritical on this matter since they were the ones who endorsed Perry for governor everytime he has run for office. Perhaps they are setting themselves up to endorse Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary next year, but I’m not convinced that she would have been any better. Hutchison just cast a vote against Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius becoming Secretary of Health and Human Services simply to appease the Religious Right because they oppose anyone who doesn’t favor criminalizing abortion.
I am greatly offended that Perry thinks so poorly of our public education system that he would promote this fox in the henhouse as chairman of the SBOE, which oversees textbooks in our schools. I only wish that the vast majority of Texans who support public education would see this as the betrayal that it is and vote to cast Perry out of office next year.

Sotomayor for Supreme Court!

You saw it here first!
Back in 2005, I recommended on my blog that President Bush tap Federal Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor for a vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Sotomayor is considered to be a moderate and was first appointed to the bench by Bush’s father. And it would have given him the distinction of appointing the first Hispanic to the Supreme Court.
To his great detriment, Bush did not heed my advice and instead chose yet another far-right wing Antonin Scalia clone for the court vacancy. He did this to try and please the extremist, looney-tune, right-wing whacko-base of his party, which today accounts for 99.999999 percent of the GOP. And what did that ultimately get him? Nada. Today he is still spat on by the wingnuts and dismissed as a “liberal” because they can never accept the reality that their nutjob political ideas, which Bush faithfully executed, DON’T WORK!
But anyhow, it now appears that President Obama will have the opportunity to pick up where Bush missed the boat and nominate Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. She is currently being touted as a front-runner for the nomination.
In case you missed it, the sudden talk of Supreme Court nominations was prompted by Justice David Souter’s surprise announcement that he will step down after the current court term. Even though Souter was appointed by Bush the Elder, he is considered to be part of the moderate-liberal wing of the court today. Replacing him with Sotomayor would change the ethnic and gender makeup of the court more than it would shift the court ideologically. But that won’t matter to the nutjobs on the far-right who will gear up for a huge wild-eyed hissy fit as soon as Obama makes his pick known.
That is why it is a good thing that the Democrats will likely have their 60-vote majority in the Senate by the time this nomination comes up for consideration. There is no point in trying to make bi-partisan concessions with an extremist minority party that has no interest in governing the country. Obama should just concentrate on picking the best qualified people and then moving forward with the other important business that he has to deal with (i.e. continuing to work on fixing the huge mess that the Republicans left him with.)
There is a good chance that Souter won’t be the only court appointment Obama will get to make. Justice John Paul Stevens is almost 90 years old and Ruth Bader Ginsburg has some major health issues she is dealing with. But even if Obama gets to replace all three of them it still would not shift the court from its current right-wing bent because all of them are from the moderate-liberal side. But hopefully Obama will take the opportunity to pick at least one justice who can serve as the intellectual leader of the court on the left, much the way that Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan used to do and the way that Antonin Scalia currently does for the rightwing majority on the court.

Brushes with fame

As a journalist I have had many opportunities to meet and interview famous people over the years. Combined with the random encounters I’ve had with famous people outside of my work experience it makes for an interesting list. 

 Autographs sought and found: 

Lyndon Johnson - Found autographed copy of his biography “Vantage Point” at a Library book sale in Connecticut. 

George McGovern - Had him autograph my program after listening to him speak at Texas A&M when he was running for president in 1984. 

Al Gore - Saw him at an airport campaign rally in College Station in 1988 and had him sign a slip of paper. 

Molly Ivins - I have two of her books autographed - one by mail and one in person.

Barney Frank - Found an autographed copy of his book at a used book store.  

Burt Ward (Robin) - Parents took me to see him during a promotional gig at a car dealership in Indiana in the early 1970s. He autographed a promotional photo for me. Bob (Cowboy Bob) Glaze - Parents took me to see him at some event in Indiana in the early 1970s. Got a signed promotional photo of him on his horse. 

Luis Tiant - Former pitcher for the Boston Red Sox signed autographs at Missions baseball game in San Antonio last year. 

E. Gary Gygax - Had him autograph my program while attending Gen Con, a gaming convention in Madison, Wisconsin in 1983. 

Al Warden - NASA astronaut my dad took me to see at Grissom AFB in Indiana. Dave Scott - NASA astronaut (Same as above.) 

Eddie Albert - Actor signed autographs to promote dedication of Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg, Texas. 

Cliff Robertson - Same as above. 

Dolph Briscoe - Former governor of Texas. Had him autograph a book after I interviewed him. 

Robert Earle Keen - Purchased a CD that he had signed. 

Tish Hinojosa - Had her sign a CD at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1993. 

Dalhart Windberg - Had him sign a print of one of his paintings I purchased at the Kerrville State Arts and Crafts Festival in 1994. 

Alabama band members - Had all the band members sign a publicity photo after a concert in San Marcos in 1982. 

Joe Diffie - Bought an autographed copy of his CD after watching him perform at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. 

Max Lucado - Autographed a book for me after an interview. 

Sister Helen Prejean - Bought her book "Dead Man Walking" and had her sign it at a book show. 

Nelson Wolf - Former Mayor of San Antonio and Bexar County Judge signed a copy of his book. 

 Interviewed: 

George W. Bush - Multiple interviews before and after he became governor, but not after he became president. 

Rick Perry - While running for Lt. Gov. and again after he became governor. 

John Sharp - While running for Lt. Gov. 

Phil Gramm - Came to Lubbock to promote something at Texas Tech shortly before launching his presidential campaign. 

Victor Morales - The guy with the white pickup truck came to Lubbock during his Quixotic bid for the U.S. Senate. 

John Cornyn - When he was a moderate Republican running for attorney general, before he became a crazy wingnut senator. 

Kay Bailey Hutchison - At some event in Lubbock. 

Laura Bush - Promoting reading or something in Lubbock. 

George Stephanopolous - On a speaking tour in Lubbock. 

James Carville - Same as above. 

Ken Starr - Gave the commencement address for the Law School at Texas Tech and then ducked out the back and breezed past me with a smile and a nod while ignoring my questions. 

Gary Mauro - While running for governor. 

Susan Combs - While running for Ag Commissioner. 

David Dewhurst - While running for Land Commissioner. 

Barney Frank - Interviewed him on the phone about the Superfund toxic waste cleanup issue when I was in Connecticut. 

Bob Bullock - Interviewed him on the phone when I was in Kerrville. 

Chris Dodd - Spoke with him at a pubicity event at the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. 

Lowell Weicker - Talked with him after a speaking engagement in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. 

Clayton Williams - Interviewed him on the phone after he was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame. 

Dolph Briscoe - Interviewed him for a feature story at his bank office in Uvalde. Max Lucado - Wrote a feature story on him in 2006. 

Rick Riordan - Wrote a feature story on him in 2007. 

Other Congress critters I’ve interviewed at one time or another: Ciro Rodriguez; Lamar Smith; Charlie Gonzalez; Larry Combest; Mac Thornberry; Henry Bonilla; Charles Stenholm; Sam Gejdenson; Rosa DeLauro 

 Met at social event: 

Ann Richards - Saw her at political mixer at A&M during her first gubernatorial campaign. 

Carol Channing - Was campaigning for Ann Richards at same event as above. Victor Navasky - Publisher of Nation Magazine held a mixer in New York during the 1992 Democratic National Convention. My wife and I rode the train in from Connecticut and attended. Saw Ralph Nader and Molly Ivins there. 

 Chance encounter: 

Jackie Sherrill - Texas A&M football coach. I rode an elevator with him at Rudder Tower - just the two of us - about 1985 or so. Didn’t say a word. 

Drew Gooden - Basketball player currently with the Spurs. Rode an elevator with him at a hotel downtown when he was still with the Cavaliers. 

David Robinson - Walked into Wal-Mart at I-10 and DeZavala one time and saw this really tall guy who turned out to be David Robinson. 

Greg Oden - Walked into McDonalds at I-10 and Wurzbach during the Final Four Playoffs and stood in line behind this really tall guy who turned out to be (I figured out the next day) Greg Oden, who would go on to be the No. 1 NBA draft pick that year. 

 Saw live performance: 

Patrick Stewart - Saw him perform with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Texas A&M before he was tapped for the role of Capt. Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

Alabama - At Southwest Texas State University in 1982 

Cheap Trick - Opening act for Night Ranger at Texas A&M in 1983. 

Night Ranger - See above. 

Trans Siberian Orchestra - A Christmas concert in San Antonio 2002. 

Blue Man Group - Saw them perform in New York in 2001 or 2002. 

Peter Yarrow - Of Peter, Paul and Mary, at the Kerrville Folk Festival. 

Itschak Perlman - Performed at Texas A&M as part of OPAS concert series. 

Dixie Chicks (pre-Natalie Maines) - In Kerrville at YO Ranch Social Club. 

Tanya Tucker - Same as above. 

Robert Earle Keen - Performed several times at July 4th Missions baseball games. Ani DiFranco - At Kerrville Folk Festival 

I saw all these folks over a number of years at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo: Barry Manilow; Joe Diffie; Asleep at the Wheel; LeAnn Rimes; Michael Martin Murphy; Kenny Rogers 

The Fifth Dimension - Performed at outside park in Houston. 

Lyle Lovett - Saw him perform in San Antonio. 

Weird Al Yankovic - Saw him perform in San Antonio. 

 Watched live speaking event: 

George H.W. Bush - He was the commencement speaker for my graduation from Texas A&M in 1989. Also saw him speak during the dedication for the Admiral Nimitz Museum in Fredericksburg. 

Bill Clinton - Saw him give a speech to the Middletown Chamber of Commerce in Connecticut when he was running for president in 1992. 

Hillary Clinton - Saw her give a speech at Yale University when she was campaigning for her husband in 1992. 

Al Gore - Saw him give a speech at a college in Middletown, Connecticut during the 1992 campaign. 

John Kenneth Galbraith and William F. Buckley Jr. - Watched a debate they had as part of a lecture tour at Texas A&M. 

Rob Bell - Saw him in San Antonio during one of his lecture tours. 

 Saw them at live sporting events: 

Johnny Bench - Saw him hit a home run at the Astrodome when the Reds played the Astros in 1978. 

Billy Williams - Saw him hit a home run at Wrigley Field when the Cubs played the Astros in 1973. 

Bo Jackson - Saw him play in the Cotton Bowl against the Texas Aggies after he won the Heisman Trophy. The Aggies stopped him on a 4th and goal situation and won the game. Whoop!! 

Chuck Knoblauch - Watched him play baseball at Texas A&M before going to the majors where he was Rookie of the Year. 

Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Kawhi Leonard, etc. - Saw them at numerous Spurs basketball games.

Network TV executives hate me

TV Guide gives a rundown on the status of TV shows for next Fall.

First, of the shows that have already been canceled, I regularly watched:
Boston Legal
ER
Life on Mars
My Own Worst Enemy

Of the shows that have a “poor” chance of returning, I am regularly watching:
Dollhouse
The Unusuals

The only show with a “good” chance of returning that I watch is:
Castle

And the only show that has been officially renewed that I watch is:
Lost

Network TV sucks.

60 votes afterall

I certainly wasn’t expecting Sen. Arlen “Magic Bullet Theory” Specter to switch parties today, but it was most certainly a welcome development for Democrats. Especially after the more obvious candidates for party switching over the years have resisted - from James Jeffords of Vermont who became an Independent rather than associating with us Dems, to Lincoln Chafee who ended up losing his Senate seat in Rhode Island because he stubbornly refused to switch parties.
But rather than following Chafee into the abyss, Specter decided to take the plunge in a bid to salvage his political career. And the odds are good now that it will work. And now Democrats are on the verge of a 60-vote filibuster-busting majority in the Senate as soon as Al Franken takes his rightful place as the next senator from Minnesota.
So Republicans are really hurting, especially in light of their loss in the New York District 20 race last week - A one-time Republican stronghold that stayed in Democratic hands despite their best efforts.
But believe me when I say that “I feel their pain.” Yes, I can actually feel just the slightest twinge of sympathy for my misguided Republican brothers and sisters on this one. That’s because I can still remember how I felt in 1994-95 as one conservative Democrat after another took turns jumping ship and stabbing the party in the back.
Remember Sen. Richard Shelby? Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell? Or how about all those turncoat Congressmen shortly after the start of the Gingrich Revolution — Billy Tauzin, Nathan Deal, Mike Parker, Jimmy Hayes, Greg Laughlin...
Yeah, it’s no fun when the shoe is on the other foot. Pretty soon there may be others like Olympia Snowe following Specter’s lead. But there shouldn’t be too many if for no other reason than the party has already shrunk down so small that there just aren’t that many people left who could conceivably make the switch. The moderate wing of the Republican Party can already hold its caucus meetings in a phone booth.