I’m a Texan. By all accounts (or just the more reliable ones) I’m a “proud Texan”. I was born here, I was raised here, and if my lack of motivation and drive persists, I’ll die here. I’m good with that. As a Texan I was indoctrinated at an early age to love Texas – the good and the bad. A bit like I love my momma, apple pie, baseball and Chevrolet. Ok, I don’t actually care one way or the other about Chevrolet – I’m indifferent – that’s the word! They’re fine and all, I’m sure. I mean no offense to anyone driving one. Oh, and while we’re at it if we could turn apple pie to some sort of cobbler and maybe replace baseball with tennis, that would be swell. Now the love of my Momma still stands, except let’s call her “Mom” or “Mother”, that would be more fitting. Whew. Got all of that out of the way. I love Mom, peach cobber, tennis (if I have to pick one) and car companies ending in “a”. And Texas! Don’t forget Texas.
As a Texan, I get to defend Texas to my out-of-state friends more times than I’d care to. Yes, in education we rank among the lowest, but many of us are fairly state-aware, despite what you were taught in whatever place you came from. And hey, we rank low in a lot of areas! TEXAS PROUD! We’re # (shoot, I don’t have that many hands)!
I feel like I’ve beaten this dead horse before, but let’s face it, I’m too lazy to link back to some post where I defended Texas. It’s out there. I’m sure my ire was up. I probably typed a few sentences using heavy, angry keystrokes. No, I won’t link those two adjectives with a contraction, and I’m aware that I’ve now ended a few sentences with prepositions, but that’s how I’m rolling today. I’ll make 32 other egregious grammar errors before I get through this post. Blame the Texas education system and a poor attitude.
Here’s the thing – Texas is my family. I can pick on it, but God forbid someone outside of it start – thems fightin’ words. Until last week…
Normally, I don’t like to get into my politics on my blog. I ust like to throw random anecdotes at you until you cry for mercy. Those cries herald an extended blogging sabbatical while I wait for the next thing to inspire me. Normally, I shrug off what comes across the national news about my state. It’s rarely good. It’s never an “atta boy, Texas” with no trace of sarcasm. Normally, I don’t cringe. Did I mention, “until last week”?
Let’s talk about Operation Jade Helm 15. You know that thing where Obama was planning to come to Texas to institute martial law. I think we were going to be rounded up into Wal-Marts and then who knows what would happen next. That story. The one where Governor Abbott sent the Texas National Guard to keep an eye on the US military. State officials from both sides of our state government sent the Governor notes basically saying, “what the…?” This played out in the media for a bit. Towards the end of last week we were notified by Gov. Abbott that he’d been briefed by the Pentagon and he now felt assured we Texans were not in peril. Whew! I’m not a huge fan of Wal-Mart. Bullet dodged!
I was gobsmacked..
I can handle being called out for my drawl. I can even handle my out-of-state friends being stunned that some Texans have had book learnin’ and can keep our drool from spilling down the front of our shirts. But this… this… I’m at a complete loss of words.
So, where I normally would avoid politics and in turn avoid posting other people’s thoughts on politics, I felt I had to be called away from couch sabbatical and post something – sometimes – other people’s words – people who are better at expressing themselves about this lunacy than I.
Strong Language Warning:
From the Stonekettle Station Blog:”Jade Helm: The Insanity that Ate Texas”
“Paranoia is a mental Illness, not a super power.”
And Jon Stewart, who is always brilliant: You can start at 4:45 if you just want to cut to the Jade Helm chase.
I’m such a proud Texan….
The Big Blue Mess 
Yes (if you will allow a non-Texan to say) this is the time when even Texans have to pull that one star flag and set it in the basement for a bit. Not long, just until this story blows over.
It’s a time when Baltimore seems more appealing. Why do elections have to be 4 years away? My sincere hope is that one of the Castro brothers (Joaquin or Julian) decide to throw their hat in the next race. It’s challenging being a Democrat in a red state (or I suspect it’s actually purple – now if we could get a larger number of folks out to vote). *sigh* I’m pulling down the flag for a bit and pulling out my I Love Oregon t-shirt. (I need to get one of those. 🙂 )
.
I have stopped watching and just going outside (probably until the election’s over) – too nutty, too many weird things. Where do they get these people?
So many are giving up on hoping that somewhere there’s some sane person that will run for office. (as you noted) Or maybe that’s the plan of the two political parties – just get so annoying people get discouraged and don’t vote
As usual people elsewhere adore making fun of Texas. That’s OK, we can laugh at them as well. (and it is often so ignorant and has been done for decades, that’s OK. We have lots of celebrations and fun without them)
This military exercise is totally stupid. It should be held in federal lands and not bother the public…besides where “overseas” looks like Hollywood western scene main street? Oh, we won’t bother the local, everyone will wear arm bands…what? like tag football? Cool – not.How is this getting experience fitting in without being noticed?
The only reason I’m commenting at all (not one of the “invasion bunch”) is that we had such a “drill” in our community and area last year – without any warning. Here we are used to seeing military transporting equipment, so no one thought much about the stuff on the roads or rails. But suddenly one day it was like WW II over head. People were calling 911, Schools were locked down. Had the ship channel been attacked? Scared the beezesus out of people. TV/radio stations/ city emergency texts started blaring out “It’s only a drill”
Thanks, folks. (Did I mention kids were crying and terrified?) It turned out the local communities who always need money, were paid a small sum to allow facilities and the surrounding area to be “leased” for the drill…it was supposed to be a secret from the locals. You cannot imagine how loud it was directly over head.. ..did I mention the crying children and old people?
So despite the current media ruckus and nutwacks fretting. at least his time they notified people.
But I understand why people don’t want to deal with the bother.
The gov. owns plenty of land or all sorts of types of terrain. Plenty of room to build any kind of ‘urban” setting (jobs program! Hollywood/out of work builders would be glad to design it!) the military desired for training.
Seriously, ordinary people have enough to do. Take your war toys and go play at your own house.
Now I’m going back outside – even with the rat poison, it’s more normal than the media, politics, and extremists these days.
Completely agree – I can’t imagine how scary that had to be to see the military rolling in without warning. I want all of our young men and women to be trained to the best of their ability in terrain similar to where they’re going to be operating, but that said – an urban setting without prior warning is going to cause a great deal of panic. It seems like a panicked population could potentially lead to some situations that could and should be avoided.
My main issue with all the news hooplah is that an elected official – the leader of our state and someone whom I thought was fairly intelligent, bought into this conspiracy theory. I want him to lead and not whip up the nuts into believing we’re heading to Wal-Mart internment centers. (Unless we are, then I totally want him to let me know, because I’m going to Target and standing my consumer ground.)
And oh no… please tell me the rat poison has been gathered up. We share fences with 7 houses and since Molly’s misadventure, I’ve been worried about what those folks could unknowingly tacked to their fences. I hope Molly continues to do well. I love hearing about her adventures with the German (under RC’s ever watchful eye, of course.)
Hope you’re enjoying the weather! Finally, the drought map isn’t looking as dire.
The company says a dog of Molly size and conditions should be safe (and they insist she didn’t eat enough to cause damage…and that the instructions are very clear on how the stuff is put out….although they could not explain why the cube was soft and crumbly when it’s designed to last until the next ice age….not being sure if more are out there, she can’t use the backyard and is still taking meds from vet. Recheck around the 20th.
What? We have a leader? RC didn’t know she had a rival. Now she’s muttering.
(I tried to watch the video, and saw a lot about the Brit election and some other stories, I’d seen…but wandered off before seeing the topic. Short attention span for politics)
The Military is in a no win situation. If they played on federal lands, some nuts would start screaming it was being hidden to hide the real purpose (against the American people) and at the other end, environmentalists would start screaming about some endangered bug. Easier to annoy and intrude on the taxpayers, right?
People here told the city “We don’t care how much they are willing to pay next time…” Our police dept also “volunteered” to train police trainees from Sam Houston Univ. law enforcement academy…the trainees were from the Middle East…yeah, this area really mirrors their towns and locations….City Hall was surprised we thought our police should be taking care of business rather than playing tour guides. A bunch of other communities turned Huntsville’s offer down
When you think the insanity simply will not end….it doesn’t!
Hope all the lakes are grabbing this rain. We have been out of drought for about a year, but crispy takes a while to recover from. Last week the ground was cracking. This year is an El nino summer pattern (usually not as strong hurricanes) which will always be followed by La nina year- so more rain and cold winter coming then. I’ll never turn down rain…got plenty of dog towels.