Ernest Borgnine 1917 - 2012

Ernest Borgnine, the larger-than-life actor with the affable gap-toothed grin and known for often villainous roles, has died. He was 95.

He had so many memorable castings, both dramatic and comedic, that it's hard to know where to start. He was Fatso Judson, the sergeant who beat up Frank Sinatra's Maggio in From Here to Eternity. He was Marty the bachelor, still living at home; the role for which he won the Academy.

Borgnine played a 34-year-old butcher who fears he is so unattractive he will never find romance. Then, at a dance, he meets a girl with the same fear.

"Sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts," Marty movingly tells his mother at one point in the film. "And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it. I chased after enough girls in my life. I-I went to enough dances. I got hurt enough. I don't wanna get hurt no more."

It doesn't get much more self-effacing than that.

There was The Dirty Dozen, Mister Roberts, Bad Day at Black Rock, Willard, Ice Station Zebra, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Wild Bunch. There was also McHale's Navy, and -- later -- Spongebob Squarepants and The Single Guy. There were dozens of cameos in television shows over the decades, from The Love Boat to Walker,Texas Ranger to Touched by an Angel.

For me his most memorable role was that of the sadistic Depression-era freight train conductor in Emperor of the North.



At the time I saw it -- 1973 -- I was 14 years old and had no concept that a person could be so cruel. My mom took pains to explain that train conductors did not act like that then; that they in fact were kind toward the disadvantaged.

Borgnine, to my own delight, identified the film as one of his favorites in this tribute.

Borgnine's biggest kick, however, was going out and meeting people - even making a documentary about himself driving around the country in a big bus: "See, this is what it's all about - living!"

Ernest Borgnine knew what it was all about.

Indeed.

Sunday Funnies

The past ten days have been a target-rich environment for the cartoonists. And the comedians...

"In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled President Obama's healthcare mandate is constitutional. This is a major victory for President Obama, who spent three years promoting it, and a major setback for Mitt Romney, who spent three years creating it."

-- Jay Leno

"For several minutes after the ruling, CNN was mistakenly reporting that the Supreme Court struck down President Obama’s healthcare law. In response CNN was like, 'Thank God no one watches us.'"

-- Jimmy Fallon

"This activist ruling opens the floodgates, folks! If Obama can force you to get health insurance just by calling it a tax, then there is nothing to stop him from making you gay marry an illegal immigrant wearing a condom in a hydroponic pot farm powered by solar energy! And you know his buddy Roberts will make it all good by calling it a 'homomexual marijuana love-glove sun tax!'"

-- Stephen Colbert

"In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said he's just gonna refuse to implement Obamacare. So if you need an operation in Louisiana you'll have to pay for it the old-fashioned way: stand on a balcony, flash your tits and hope someone throws you money."

-- Bill Maher

Keep in mind that you will have at least two other choices on your November ballot.

NAACP national convention in Houston this weekend

Vice President Joe Biden and Mitt Romney are both scheduled to speak.

As more than 8,000 members of the nation's most venerable civil rights organization gather in Houston this weekend for a convention featuring appearances by Vice President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the unofficial topic outside the hall may be whether time has passed the NAACP by.

During the long years when black children were forced to attend separate, vastly inferior schools and Southern states were relying on poll taxes, voters' tests and raw intimidation to keep black citizens from the ballot box, the focus for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was both urgent and crystal clear. The association was at the forefront in the arduous battle to end racial segregation in schools and other public places as well as secure the right to vote for black Americans.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the Supreme Court, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were the tangible results of a monumental decades-long struggle.

Today, 103 years after the association's founding, the issues are more nuanced, even though racial inequity and its consequences remain a stubborn fact of American life.

All you have to do is read the comments at that story to understand what the NAACP still has to combat. The biggest internal struggle is the Obama administration's declaration of support for gay marriage, and the corresponding endorsement by the NAACP of gay rights as as civil rights under the 14th Amendment. NPR has the best reporting of that.

The biggest external issue uniting the delegates is the renewed fight for voting rights.

"In the past legislative session, more states have passed more laws pushing more voters out of the ballot box than in any legislative session since the rise of Jim Crow," (NAACP president Ben Jealous) said. "A wave like that is intentional. It's created by hundreds of state legislators across the country acting in unison to suppress the vote."

Yeah, there's that, and then there's the Texas Republican party platform.

The NAACP national convention follows by less than a month the Texas Democratic Party's state convention here in H-Town. If I was a Republican I might think it was a grand conspiracy to motivate Harris County Democrats to turn out the vote in November.

You have to wonder if these quivering, scared conservatives around town have stocked up on ammunition and will be sitting in their barricaded homes clinging to their guns and Bibles.

Meh. They'll all be as mad as a wet hen for the next three months -- and the four years after that -- no matter what.

Helena Wheels Brown

She might prefer "Heavena", but it's Hell for certain.

Houston City Councilwoman Helena Brown subtracted hours from employees' timecards in apparent violation of federal law, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

The first-term councilwoman shorted an employee by more than three hours in a day in several cases. At least six times, Brown deleted enough hours from employees' reported workweeks that it cost them overtime by bringing their weekly total under 40 hours.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime pay and accurate record keeping. City policy prohibits supervisors from changing employees' timecards except to correct errors. A spokeswoman for the Harris County district attorney said the office does not confirm the existence of investigations but said the Public Integrity Unit would handle a complaint if one were filed. Charges that could result from the circumstances described by the Chronicle could include tampering with a government document, a felony, she said.

Brown's staff at one time included five 39-hour-per-week employees classified as part-timers. Many of Brown's changes to the times reported by her employees appear to shorten or lengthen their workweeks to exactly 39 hours.

Hell for her, and hell for the rest of us.

...Brown has commingled maxims found in the Tea Party, the libertarian movement and Catholic zealotry and introduced them to Houston City Council, preaching parsimony and the elimination of almost all taxation. Brown's iconoclasm has galvanized the rest of the council against her and made even its most conservative participants seem moderate by comparison.

Oh, and starring William Park as Dale Gribble -- thanks for that, Stace -- in the supporting role of Satan's angel Hell's unpaid counsel.

Following a month-long investigation into Helena Brown involving dozens of interviews and a review of public records and Brown's e-mails, it's become apparent that the councilwoman isn't quite the harmless radical she at first appears to be. She isn't acting alone.

Rather, an outside volunteer "senior adviser" named William Park — a man who popped into her life a few years back — appears to dictate her office, and some say her life. Brown's speeches, laced with demagoguery, aren't extemporaneous. By nearly all accounts, Park plans, if not writes, them.

Former and current staffers say Park has planted a friend on staff to spy on other staffers, sometimes floats racially charged ideas and — most distressing — directs a significant percentage of Brown's votes on City Council, according to interviews with numerous sources familiar with the situation.

What's more, Park has a past. Once the CEO of a local brokerage firm called United Equity Securities, which had offices all over the country, Park was banned from the investments industry on April 25, 2011, by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority which said he failed to comply with the arbitration award — namely that he didn't pay a woman who successfully sued him.

[...]

In an e-mail to the Houston Press, Park denied any financial malfeasance: "United Equity Securities never bilked any investors, never had any fines, nor owes anyone any money. I was not banned from the securities industry, much less for any fraudulent activity as there NEVER was any fraudulent activity." He then wrote: "You might want to consider giving your life to Jesus Christ as life is short and find the peace and forgiveness that only He can give you."

That last part is important. It provides a clue as to how Park could become such a dominant force in Brown's life and politics. Helena Brown, 34, was home-schooled and inculcated with Roman Catholic dogmas, which play an omnipresent role in her life, according to several interviews. Her social positions derive from strict, literal interpretations of the Bible, said Bernadette McLeroy, who's known Brown for more than a decade and looks on her like a daughter.

But even McLeroy had never seen Park before Brown got into office.

There's a good hour's worth of reading there if you follow all the links, and it's both wildly entertaining and frightening as all hell. John Birch's acolytes have nothing on these people.

See what happens when you don't vote, people?

Charles and John have more.

Independence Day Funnies

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance -- those of us along the Gulf Coast, anyway -- are not praying for rain as we bring you this week's round-up of the best of the left of Texas from last week.

Off the Kuff disputed the notion that Rick Perry would be doing better than Mitt Romney if he were the GOP Presidential nominee.

BossKitty at TruthHugger wonders where all the constitutional scholars are, and why they are so silent, in Preamble to the US Constitution Violated.

While the Supreme Court delivered landmark case decisions earlier and later in the week, the two Texas Democrats battling for the nomination to the US Senate held a debate. They were overshadowed, as it turned out, for good reason. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs paid attention but really wishes he hadn't.

The Democrats have to, in the minds of voters, turn themselves back into the party of the people and the GOP back into the party of the rich and powerful. The winning won't start again until that's done, and that new governing coalition is built in Texas. WCNews at Eye on Williamson says that "Beer and Democracy" is as good a place to start.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme isn't surprised that the republican Supreme Court wants American Hispanics to carry citizenship papers. Yeah. Right.

At TexasKaos, lightseeker shines a light on the continuing assault of public education in Texas. Coupled with the nationwide exposure of the anti-criticial thinking plank in the state Republican platform, it's scary stuff indeed. Take a look: Killing Public Education in Texas with STARR.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted a list of Fourth of July events in Houston, Galveston, Fort Bend County and College Station. This list of information comes with a nifty Fourth of July reading list included for no extra charge.

Justin at Asian American Action Fund Blog cheers the incredible rise of Asian Americans in the Texas Democratic Party while lamenting the failures of the Texas Democratic Party Convention's Nominations Committee.