Sunday Funnies

Everybody still needs a giggle, right?





and three from Tom Toles:

Israel Behar-Ojalvo, 1929 - 2007

My father-in-law's suffering ended this morning about 1:30 a.m.



His family emigrated from Turkey to Cuba sometime after the turn of the century, and he and his wife left Cuba in 1962, carrying only my future wife and a bag of diapers. He left behind a comfortable life -- manager of a rayon plant, a large home with domestic help, sizable assets -- and went initially to Brooklyn, where his double doctorate in chemistry and pharmacology was at first only good enough for a janitorial position in a small pharmacy. By the time he retired in 1982, he was a manager of a chemical plant in Orange, TX and even after, his old employer Allied Signal (now Honeywell) sought his consultative services at the rate of $1,000 a day.



He leaves behind his loving wife, Nilda (they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last month) and two daughters, Nilda Hassell and Sue Dorrell. He will be interred in Miami, Florida.

Vaya con Dios, Papi. Te quiero mucho. Hasta luego.

Duty, honor, and curveballs

(I liked the story so much I plagiarized the title.)

Brannan had enlisted in the Marine Corps right after high school, learned honor and courage and commitment and Semper Fi, heard bullets whiz by his head, seen friends die, lost his left pinky to a flash-bang grenade. He had lived "in the Bible times," as he liked to say, so for a moment he allowed himself to appreciate the fortuity of this, him, here, sun and grass, in the uniform of a completely different kind.

"You still remember how to put that stuff on?" said Grady Fuson, the Padres' vice president of scouting.

Brannan nodded. He was weaning himself off "yes, sir" and "no, sir," learning to address his superiors by their first names and nicknames.

The last piece of the uniform was his hat. Brannan, 22, slipped it on nice and snug so it would cover his high-and-tight haircut. Officially, he is still a Marine until he receives his honorable discharge on May 31, so he'll stay clean-shaven and hang dog tags in his locker. The Corps is allowing him to complete his duty with the Padres as an ambassador of sorts, proof that there can be success after war.

"This is about the military," said San Diego CEO Sandy Alderson, a former first lieutenant in the Marines and the man responsible for Brannan being a Padre. "This is about all Iraq veterans. This is about people who are wounded. This is a story that makes everybody feel good.

And it's predicated on the fact that he can actually throw the baseball."

You may have to move past the fact that Cpl. Brannan is being used as a propaganda tool by the military and just appreciate the determination of a proud young man; a patriot, a pitcher.

That is what spring, the time of renewal, is all about. This is the season of Purim, and of Lent. Even as the buds and blooms begin to show their little heads, the cold winter just past (still with some of you, I recognize) reminds us that out of the bare dark nothing comes the beauty of hope, the excitement of unbridled possibility.

Wait a minute; are we still talking baseball?

Live from the cardiac unit of Methodist Hospital

... where my father-in-law will be discharged today, to hospice care at home. Occasional and subdued posting ahead. Thanks for all your kind wishes and offers of help and support.

Sunday Funnies

More Hou-centric scattershooting

... while wondering what happened to nobody in particular:

-- I rarely recommend our local right-wing blogs, but this is a great posting for Texas Independence Day.

-- Paul Burka has the latest on Debra Danburg and her recovery from cancer.

--via blogHouston, also mostly never recommended, is some detail from KHOU on the high-rise residential construction boom inside the Loop. Another big one downtown broke ground this week. We're in the market for a new abode, with the addition to our family, and this is precisely the style of living we love. Of course, the whining about mobility from the right is already under way. They don't want anything but more and wider lanes for their SUVs and they don't even want to to pay enough taxes to pay for that.

Really, it's kind of hilarious that people who live in Spring can feel any justification whatsoever in complaining about light rail in Houston. Just stay out there in the suburbs, you hicks.

-- Will we execute child molesters in Texas? Maybe, maybe not. Vince has multiple postings live-logging the debate in the Texas House (scroll down to the HB 8 series). In any case, the law's changes won't affect Jon Matthews, unless he is so sick that he can't stop his sexual predation even after he leaves prison in a few years.

-- The guy in Katy who had the pig races across from the mosque was on the Daily Show, and somehow I missed it. Anybody have a link?

Two-stepping some Lone Star speculation

Hey, it's rodeo time in H-Town, after all ...

Charles Kuffner made a plausible theory out of Markos Moulitsis' postulate regarding the prospects for dumping Senator Box Turtle. Most everything has already been said already, but here's two more cents' worth:

I'm pretty confident that Bill White would rather run for governor than for anything in Washington except the White House. He's a CEO, not a member of the tribe. And even though they are not usually the kind of Democrats we elect in Deep-In-the-Hearta, there are only a few people mentioned who meet the definition of "people-powered candidate". And of those, Lloyd Doggett is likely the guy Kos has in mind. Doggett has won a statewide race in the not-so-distant past (state Supreme Court) and he's sitting on a pile of money. Doggett would be an excellent candidate and an even better Senator.

Though my very first choice would be Rick Noriega.

Which reminds me that I haven't been as supportive -- online or off -- of Melissa's race for Houston city council as I intended to be.

This woman is a political powerhouse in her own right. She could have easily had the career in public service that her husband has, had that been her choice. There are some people who are just lifted by circumstance to serve, and Melissa is one of those people.

Besides that, we just need to put more women in office across this country. We'd probably have a lot more compassion and a lot less meanness if we did. We'd certainly have fewer wars.

James Rodriguez, with whom I lunched yesterday, is similarly a thoughtful and capable person who is standing for Houston city council. He was quick to point out that there is no such word as 'patrona' in Spanish. I hope to sit down soon with John Marron, who has labor backing and the endorsement of county commissioner Sylvia Garcia. Several heavyweights whose opinions I respect are in support of both men, so this race will be spirited and could be contentious. I don't get a vote in District I, and it's possible that I would endorse two men for the one job. Truth to tell, we need both of them in public service.