UNITED TATES POST OFFICE K RBYVILLE. TEXAS

 

Southeast Texas Alerting Network Adventures in Registration - weekly column 25 September 2023

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Southeast Texas Alerting Network Adventures in Registration

 

Last week KJAS Radio published a notice that those of us already signed up for STAN, the acronym for Southeast Texas Alerting Network, will have to register again for continued service, and that those without this needful program can sign up now  [Jasper County Residents must re-register for STAN | Local News | kjas.com].

 

STAN’s mission, per Amanda Gates, is to send out emergency alerts (fires, weather, and other crises), and notifications regarding street closures, water outages, traffic issues, and other useful information.

 

This summer I was certainly grateful for the wildfire alerts, and given our area’s dangerous weather, including tornadoes and hurricanes, this is a useful service.

 

Signing up for STAN is said to take only a few minutes. This was true last year; it is not now. Not for me, anyway. STAN is operated by a body styling itself Everbridge (and what is that supposed to mean?), and Everbridge has made registering a (insert expletive of choice here).

 

First of all, Everbridge insisted that my email address, which I have used for years, is not my email address, and blocked my re-registration without any means of appeal.

 

Given that re-registration is not a possibility according to Everbridge, I decided to register as if I were a new user. This was tedious but do-able; however, Everbridge insisted that my username was already in use. I tried a different name. This time Everbridge simply said that the username was not acceptable. I then went through some 20-30 usernames without success. Name after name, dreary imaginings and re-entries worthy of Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The username that finally worked was an allusion to Saylor’s Creek, where my great-grandfather was made a prisoner-of-war (you know, one of those people a certain former president who never made the first day of recruit training doesn’t like) in 1865.

 

After an hour or so of fiddle-faddling with Everbridge’s obscure system, I am registered. I think. We’ll see.

 

I then read some of the heavy-handed warnings: “You must comply with Everbridge’s Acceptable Use Policy,” “You will be responsible…,” and a whole catalogue of such verbiage apparently generated by someone who wanted to be a prison camp guard and couldn’t meet the standards:

 

You will not…

You may not…

You must not…

You must…

You agree immediately…

You will be responsible…

You must comply…you must comply…you must comply…

You acknowledge and agree…

You agree to…

 

There are also cautions against transmitting secret federal information. I don’t have any secret federal information and if I did I couldn’t send it via STAN; this is a passive reception scheme that does not accept messages.

 

Everbridge is also known as:

 

Critical Event Management

Safety Connection

Community Engagement

Visual Command Center

Crisis Commander (isn’t this a video game?)

CareConverge

ManageBridge

EngageBridge

HipaaBridge

SecureBridge

Interactive Visibility

Nixle

 

No wonder Everbridge can’t keep email addresses straight; they appear not to know who they are.

 

Despite the vague sound of unmarked stealth UN helicopters, participating in STAN is one of our county government’s better ideas for promoting safety, and I encourage the reader to sign up for it.

 

Besides, maybe next year someone will have some high school students design an easier-to-use interface. I’ll bet they can do it.

 

For now, begin with Everbridge.com.

 

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You Can Never be an Icon

 You Can Never be an Icon

One longs to read an newspaper article or hear a news report in which the writer or speaker does not refer to someone as an icon.  

Royalty-free image from:  https://www.pxfuel.com/en/search?q=orthodox+icons

A Station Stop for the Hummingbird Express

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Station Stop for the Hummingbird Express

 

Hummingbirds buzz the sugar water buffet

At this junction for the connection to Mexico

I feel I should be wearing a white apron and cap

Refills for everyone – and will that be to go?

 

No ideological baggage, no bumper stickers

Their maps all drawn for them by an invisible Hand

Their simple duties a transcendent joy

An ancient mission through divine command

 

Hummingbirds buzz the sugar water buffet

Then with a goodbye to summer they wing away

What This Country Needs is a Better Class of Criminals

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

Mhall46184@aol.com

17 September 2023

What This Country Needs is a Better Class of Criminals

 

I don’t mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one.

-Rick in Casablanca

 

I was frustrated when my lawnmower wouldn’t start. I had bought a new battery and was annoyed that it wasn’t holding a charge. I dismounted, dragged up my rolling stool, and sat down to examine the battery that to my surprise wasn’t there.

A thief in the night had yanked the battery, leaving only the stripped ends of the leads. That was unprofessional; a good thief would have brought the proper wrench or used the one I left within an arm’s reach of the mower. Tools were available, the porch light was more than adequate – how much of the work does a homeowner have to do for the contemporary petty criminal?

The bungling burglar didn’t get far with the battery, however; I found it about twelve feet away from the mower. The poor sap had somehow tripped, bringing some stacked firewood down upon him, and dropping the battery while in flight. A few feet away he managed to trip again over some more firewood, which is just plain embarrassing.  As a taxpaying citizen I expect a higher class of thief. No, I don’t necessarily mean a Raffles or a John “The Cat” Robie, but maybe just a good quality journeyman crook looking to build a better career.

The not-a-cat burglar does get some credit for focus, though. Close by the lawnmower was a Stihl leaf blower worth far more than the lawnmower battery, as well as an old but high-quality battery charger and a small air compressor. But, no sir, the lad wanted a lawnmower battery and he avoided all distractions in going for that. We must admire his sense of mission.

The follow-through was inept, though, leaving the battery, the object of his endeavors, behind like that.

And a real professional would not have left messes – electric leads torn loose, firewood all over the porch – it’s unseemly.

Frankly, I’m disappointed in the overall quality of burglars and looters today. Is this the best America can do? Texans used to make off with herds of cattle and now they can’t even pinch a lawnmower battery without botching the job.

I blame the teachers, fluoride, George Bush, vaccines, and Jewish space lasers for the poor quality of contemporary criminals. C’mon, America; we can do better!

 

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Lipton's Tea - Tin from Hong Kong, 1970, photograph

I bought this tin - which really is made of tin - in Hong Kong in 1970 while on R & R. I still make a cup from these leaves every few years.

Tea for Texas - weekly column 10 September 2023

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Tea for Texas

Major General Urquhart: "Hancock, I've got lunatics laughing at me from the woods. My original plan has been scuppered now that the jeeps haven't arrived. My communications are completely broken down. Do you really believe any of that can be helped by a cup of tea?”

Corporal Hancock: “Couldn't hurt, sir.”

 

-A Bridge Too Far

 

Bubba Ebarb, of happy memory, required certain specific performances for his several successful restaurants.  One of his rules was that the iced tea would never reach the old age of one hour before it was tossed and replaced with a fresh brewing of the refreshing leaf.

This is the sort of value that made him a great success. Unfortunately, such reasonable expectations appear to be rarer now.

Iced tea has been a staple since around the time of the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 (Meet Me in St. Louis) when mechanical ice-making, the existing popularity of tea, an especially hot summer, and thirsty fairgoers together made a historical shift in refreshment.

Once upon a time in Texas a glass of good, fresh iced tea was easily available at any café’ in the Lone Star Republic, but now it’s a little more difficult to find at all and is often a vintage sludge.

Last week I stopped at a Famous Name Fat Foodery in Buffalo, Texas for a refreshing mid-morning cup of the good stuff, and the muffly voice crackling through the grill said that they didn’t have any tea-tea but that their mango tea was really good.

Mango tea.

In Buffalo, Texas.

As Macduff does not say in Macbeth, “Oh, Texas, when wilt thou find thy wholesome ways again!”

Has Texas become a colony of West Hollywood? Is Mission Espiritu Santo at Goliad now a fusion cuisine restaurant specializing in avocado toast? When Cabeza de Vaca and his companions made their epic, years-long trek across Texas did they consider the majesty of the land and its vast spaces and exclaim, “Here we will establish our fruit bars, our incense shops, our therapy spas, our vegetarian Thai takeouts, our tea shops of infused bamboo shoots!”

On down the road I found a big Famous Name Brand truck stop which featured several tanks of iced tea.  The first tank oozed out something like an oil change.  The second tank dribbled out something even darker and more viscous.

I bought a bottle of water from the cooler.

Look, I’m not a tea snob; I’m even cool with teabags (gasp!). In the winter I like a good cuppa char; just a good black tea / schwarztee, and at all times I’m up for a glass of iced tea, Texas’ national beverage. The essential factor is that the tea is fresh.

Real Texans / Texians / Tejanos / Texicans drink real tea and drink it real fresh. Bubba would expect no less. God bless fresh tea, God bless Bubba Ebarb, and God bless Texas.

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Do Not Cut with Sharp Objects - photograph of a box from Amazon.com

 Should we cut with dull objects?

Storm Blowing in from the West - photograph

 Wishful thinking - this picture is from the spring of 2023,

not the hot, dry, miserable, fiery summer that followed.

All the News That's Fit to Beam Me Up, Scotty - in praise of local newspapers

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

3 September 2023

 

All the News That’s Fit to Beam Me Up, Scotty

 

We read on newsprint that newsprint is soon to be no more, and so the East Texas Banner from Kirbyville, Texas will appear only via electrons on your personal device.

 

The finest image of a small-town newspaper is in a painting by Norman Rockwell [Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor | The Saturday Evening Post]. We see the venerable old editor pounding out a story on his antique Underwood beneath a photograph of benevolent Franklin D. Roosevelt. A printer’s assistant wearing his big brother’s sailor hat (the time is 1946) hastily delivers copy to a pretty typist who flirts with him. The wall is a catalogue of objects we never see anymore: electric lights in sconces, a pencil sharpener, documents pinned on a spindle, and a page-a-day calendar. The telephone includes a wooden box with two bells, the in and out trays are a hopeless mess, and the venetian blinds are long past needing replacement.

 

I suppose now all the work shown in this humble newspaper office would be accomplished via people in three different locations communicating in only two-dimensions through big Orwellian telescreens.

 

And I don’t think there is a pencil sharpener at the Banner office; computer cursors don’t need sharpening.

 

But the method of transmission is not important; what is important is that a rural community has a private-enterprise voice for and of the people, helmed by an editor and a staff who have the news and the desire to report it in their blood (metaphorically, of course).

 

Tyrants and bullies do not like newspapers; the First Amendment certainly reads well but the subsequent history of this nation is littered with the wreckage of smashed printing presses, burnt newspaper offices, and occasionally the corpse of editors who upset some local Boss Tweed.

 

Sadly, this is not only history. Last month the self-styled bosses in Marion, Kansas raided the Marion County Record based on rumors and gossip. An illegal search warrant was signed off by a magistrate and some of the tubbiest Barney Fifes you ever saw on security cameras waddled in to raid the newspaper office and carry off computers, cell ‘phones, and paperwork. The lads then raided two private homes, bullied a 98-year-old woman (who died the next day), and made off with more electronics and paperwork, most of it personal, in a violation of the 4^th Amendment. 

 

A corrupt Kansas police department in its unlawful acts against a small-town newspaper indicates the continuing need for small-town newspapers everywhere.

 

I could (and do) mutter about the reality that not all change is good, but we are blessed in continuing to have our good ol’ hometown newspaper.  High school graduations, homecoming parades, weddings, funerals, births, reunions, and all the other rites of passage obtain even without a newspaper, but reading about them and seeing the photographs just seems to make them more official.

 

Access to the now electrical East Texas Banner, according to Sandi Saulsbury, can be made by typing in www.easttexasbanner.com in the top bar of your personal Orwellian telescreen. Once in you can read the news and, if you wish, easily subscribe so that in the future the weekly edition appears on your machine.

 

The gadgetry has changed, but the absolute need for a free press in a free nation can never change. Reading your local newspaper is not only informative and entertaining, it can also be considered a civic duty.

 

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Riding to the Sound of the Guns - a tribute to firefighters, 27 August 2023

Riding to the Sound of the Guns

 

In hot, burnt, smoky East Texas this summer we are again and again reminded that in hard times there are men and women who ride to the sound of the guns and then there are guys who slouch on the couch with their he-man video games.

 

In Texas most firefighters are unpaid volunteers, a rare contradiction to the axiom that you get what you pay for. Volunteer firefighters don’t get paid nothin’, but their names are written large on the scroll of Texas heroes.

 

Professional firefighters in the cities and industries often retire to the country where they immediately sign on as volunteers. Oooh-rah!

 

Texas is always hot, but this summer has been gaspingly hot, Rime of the Ancient Mariner hot, with its “hot and copper sky,” 100+ degrees “day after day.” Simply to be outside in this heat can be dangerous, to work outside more dangerous. A firefighter’s bunker gear, also known as turnout gear, can add 30-40% to his or her body weight and God alone knows how much extra heat.

 

And then there is The Fire. The Fire – hot as three (Newarks), blowing, twisting, running, sneaking, exploding, and wildly unpredictable. A fire is not a sentient being, but given the conditions of drought, wind, and fuel can present as a malevolent monster who wants to destroy and devour anyone who presumes to deny it mastery over the lives and works of people.

 

In the sky, covering and hovering, are the crews of the various types of water bombers. Being in the sky sounds like a better deal, and perhaps at times it is, but note those aircraft: the jets are old civilian aircraft re-fitted for purposes never intended by the manufacturers. The crew must fly those machines within mere feet of the treetops to drop their loads of water or fire-retardant chemicals. If anything goes wrong – a bolt that was not secured properly, a wing or panel which after years of service finally gives way to metal fatigue, an engine that chokes up for only a second - there is no chance for recovery, no chance of life for the crew, only death. Take a look also at the helicopters and crop-dusters modified for fighting fires, and how vulnerable they are.

 

Other support includes firefighters from all over Texas, power crews working downed lines through burning woods, and the several state and local police authorities guarding roads all the way through the crisis, and seeing to the safe evacuations of the people and the protection of their homes.

 

When a mission is over, the sweaty, dusty, ash-stained, exhausted fire crews in all the disciplines then return their equally work-stained machines to the barn for hours of service, repair, washing, and detailing. The crews might not get any sleep, they might not even finish washing up their machines, their gear, or themselves before the sound of the cannons through squawking boxes and old-timey sirens calls them out to the scenes of another disaster.

 

There are guys who know Call of Duty on little plastic boxes that light up and make noises, and then there are real men and women who know the true call of duty.

 

There is a difference. God forgive us if we forget those who keep us safe.

 

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