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By
JIM STREET Ed
& Pub With all the
security at our airports today, we should be the safest people in the world,
right? Well, not
exactly. We keep
reacting in the same bureaucratic fashion to each new threat, loudly
proclaiming for all to hear what we are doing to “protect” ourselves while
clearly telling the enemy how they can beat us. It is very
close to the proverbial closing of the barn door after the horse has gone.
And it’s a bureaucratic one-size-fits-all response, great for looking like
you are “doing something” but not very effective at preventing the threat. OPINION The Israelis
live with terrorists all around them but they have never had a serious
security threat at their airports. Why? Because
they know how to do security. We clearly do not. Isaac Yeffet,
the former head of security for the Israeli airline El Al told Mike Huckabee
on FOX News over the weekend that security in Israel starts long before the
passenger gets to the airport and it is “proactive” rather than “reactive”
like US screening tends to be. Screeners are
all “quality” people who have been “trained very well” and then are subjected
to “non-stop” testing to keep them on top of their game, he said. As soon as a
passenger buys a ticket, Israeli security goes to work, finding out as much
as they can about the traveler. And they look for specific threats. Before I came
to Sanderson, I was part owner of a limousine company and two of my biggest
clients were Galaxy Aerospace, which has since been bought by Gulfstream, and
another “completion center” in McKinney. Pilots would
fly in by commercial airline to pick up a plane and fly it home or vice
versa. They usually bought one-way tickets at the last minute, frequently
with cash, and they had no luggage. They were
harassed no end by our screeners as those criteria might indicate they
should. Yet Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab walked onto an airplane in Amsterdam on
Christmas day with a bomb in his underwear and nobody raised a red flag. He bought a
one-way ticket, with cash, and had no luggage. No problem, climb aboard. His own father
had warned that he might be a threat. He had trained with al Qaida in Yemen
and showed troubling tendencies. But no one seemed to notice. He had a US
visa, approved nearly two years ago. But couldn’t someone have looked him up
and, perhaps, canceled his visa? Perhaps, but
our bureaucratic “security” agencies – did I hear right that there are now
some 21 of them? – don’t like to talk to each other. In a
bureaucracy, another agency is the “enemy,” not the guy trying to blow
airplanes out of the sky. And they don’t
like to “profile.” So they treat everyone exactly the same, making it much
harder to find a real threat. When pre-board
screening was first introduced in the early 1970s, it was just a response to
hijackers who simply wanted a free ride to that Communist paradise known as
Cuba. Hijackings in those days were never a major threat to personal safety,
though they did cost the airlines a pile of bucks in extra fuel, missed
connections and the like. Then came the
very real attack on the US with the “911” hijackings that took over four
airliners, destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center and severely
damaged the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 innocent people along with way. It was clear,
we were now at war. So we stepped up security. Then Richard Ried tried to
blow up an airplane with a shoe bomb so we now made everyone take off their
shoes, whether they were a realistic threat or not. The British
then headed off a plot to blow up airplanes with liquid explosives. Now we
couldn’t take liquids on board, except for tiny allowed amounts. Again, close
the door after the horse is gone. Our response
is clear. And it is loudly proclaimed. All the bad guys have to do is come up
with something we hadn’t thought of before. The British
used human intelligence to find the potential liquid explosive threat. And
that’s the way it should be done. We probably
will always need a degree of pre-board screening, at least until the current
threats go away. But the real effort should be on finding out who plans to
blow us up and nipping the threat at that end, long before they ever even get
to the airport. US security
efforts have always looked for the weapon, not the person. But we need to
find the bad guys and stop harassing the innocent so much. “We will not
let you surprise us,” Yeffett told Huckabee. He said the screening begins
long before the passenger gets to the airport. Huckabee noted
the Israelis concentrate on the “people, not the process” and we “have
procedures” but we need “a system.” As long as we
keep harassing grandmother and miss clues on the real terrorists, we will be
at risk. And that’s a
risk we can ill afford. The Oklahoma
Land Rush At noon on
Monday April 22, 1889, and to the sound of a Calvary bugle, thousands upon
thousands charged off to claim their piece of the Oklahoma Territory. They gathered
on the starting line or on the state lines of Texas or Arkansas. They could
claim up to 160 acres of land. They traveled
either by horseback, wagon, oxcart or on foot. A special train came in from
the north arriving at 1 p.m. and brought untold numbers. The train was
so crowded that there was not enough room inside so people were clinging to
the sides and hanging out the windows and even on the roof. When it
stopped, people fell all over the place and some even had to crawl out the
windows. There was so
much excitement because everyone had hopes of obtaining a piece of the
promised land. It was theirs
free, all they had to do was claim it and live on it. That event
reminds me of something in the Bible. It talks a lot about a place that God
would give us and it would be free. It would be
there forever and forever (2 Samuel 7:13 and 16, Revelation 11:15.) It would
never be destroyed or moved (Hebrews 12:28). We are told to
seek it first, above anything else (Matthew 6:33.) We receive it by repenting
and trusting in Christ (Matthew 3:2, 16:28, John 3:3.) See you in
Church next Sunday. Brother J Twenty Years
of Stargazer By
PAUL DERRICK Stargazer
With this column,
Stargazer, first published in January 1990, is 20 years old. And there's more
than one irony associated with its existence. Back in 1958,
had anyone predicted to my University of Texas freshman English instructor
that her immature 18-year-old student would become a published writer, she
would have laughed while marking another "D" on yet one more of my
weekly 500-word themes. And not only
did I have poor writing skills, but I had to struggle to come up with 500
words on the topics we were assigned. Now, I
struggle to keep my every-other-week column down to the 500-word range. For reasons I
still can't fathom, amateur astronomy is a hobby dominated by males, yet
three women are largely responsible for helping me launch Stargazer. In 1954, as a
14-year-old growing up on the banks of Galveston Bay, it was 81-year-old
Margaret Willits who lit the stargazing flame in me. I was amazed
as she pointed out stars and told me their names, outlined constellations and
knew which "stars" were really planets. She described
seeing Haley's Comet in 1910 and told me some day I could see it for myself –
a day that came in 1986. Years later,
in late 1989, I came up with the idea of a column, drafted four pilots and
submitted them to the Waco Tribune-Herald, my hometown newspaper. In her
rejection letter, then-Managing Editor Barbara Elmore offered some helpful
critique and invited me to resubmit if I cared to. Disappointed
but also encouraged, I asked journalist friend Becky Gregory, now the Trib's
managing editor, to give my pilots a no-holds-barred assessment – and, boy,
did she ever. Her multi-page
response, akin to a Journalism 101 crash course, was incredibly helpful. I
rewrote and resubmitted the pilots and the Stargazer column was born. In 1998 I
retired from my career as social worker and college professor and began
devoting more time to my amateur astronomy passion. In 2002, I
began offering Stargazer to other newspapers and it now appears in some 65
papers in five states. The free email
version of the column goes out to 200 people in 21 states and seven countries
and is archived on my Web site. As I approach
my 70th birthday still loving the stars, I anticipate many more Stargazers
and I welcome your letters and e-mails with comments and questions. I answer every
one.
Friday,
January 15, the new Moon produces an annular eclipse of Sun which,
unfortunately, won't be visible over the US. Sunday
evening, January 17, the crescent Moon is to the lower right of Jupiter low
in the west at dusk and the following night is above the planet. Saturday,
January 13, the Moon is at first quarter. Wednesday,
January 27, Mars passes closest to Earth in its orbit, at 62 million miles,
although this is not one of its closer approaches. Friday,
January 29, Mars reaches opposition – on the opposite side of Earth from the
Sun – when it rises at sunset, is up all night and sets at sunrise. Although
it is much brighter than usual, a bright Moon steals the Red Planet's thunder
as it closely follows it across the sky all night.
Evenings,
Jupiter is setting in the western sky as Mars is rises in the eastern sky. Mornings,
Mercury, very low in the east, is at its best Jan. 27. Saturn is high in the
south. Mars is in the west. Venus is now in the Sun. Stargazer appears every other week, space
permitting. Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. Contact
him at 918 N. 30th, Waco, 76707, (254) 753-6920 or paulderrickwaco@aol.com. See the
Stargazer Web site at stargazerpaul.com. The Oil Camp
at Texon Texon is a
small place between Rankin and Big Lake almost dried up by time. But for
people who lived there, the memories are strong. “Texon was the
first oil camp in the Permian Basin and one of the largest,” said Roger
Goertz of Big Spring, who has written extensively about Texon. He grew up there, then later had a career
in education. He said among
the amenities the town offered were a swimming pool, golf course, movie
theater, lighted tennis and croquet courts, a baseball field, skeet-shooting
range, library, park and picnic grounds.
All the
facilities were offered free of charge except for the theater’s nominal
admission charge. The town even had
an airstrip with a hangar for visiting investors. During the
baseball team’s peak years, players were hired to both work and play
baseball. The Texon
Oilers played several major league teams and won the national semi-pro
baseball championship in 1928. For a time,
the town also sponsored a polo team, which competed with area teams from
Midland, Ozona and San Angelo. Texon’s
nine-hole golf course had sand greens. Earlier greens were made of
cottonseeds. Water was
unavailable on the course, so the fairways had little grass. Some holes
required players hit a ball across a canyon or up a small hill. Rattlesnakes
were plentiful, so players carried a 410 in their golf bag. Roger said
scouting was a favorite activity for boys growing up in Texon. “We built a
log cabin from old telephone poles,” he said. “We went on camping trips to
Grierson Springs, about five miles from Texon. “Sometimes,
when it was real cold, we’d play games at the flare a mile west of town,” he
said. “It was built of large pipe and stood thirty feet tall. “It produced
so much heat you didn’t need a jacket or sweater, Roger said. “To make pocket
change, my friends and I shot birds with BB guns and sold them to a
government trapper for a penny each.” When Roger and
his family first moved to Texon, the houses had red roofs and were painted
light gray with dark gray trim. Later the
company changed to white paint with green trim and green roofs. “There was
little to set one house apart from the next,” Roger said. Couples
without children lived in a duplex. Single men lived in a bunkhouse. Single
teachers lived in a house with several bedrooms, much like a small dormitory.
Rent and electricity payments were deducted from the employees’ paychecks. Roger said
people seldom locked their doors. People who
lived in the “amp” at Texon were extremely close and encouraged their kids to
get an education. Students who
attended college worked for the company during summers. When camp closed
during the mid-sixties, employees were allowed to buy their homes for $50 per
room. Roger has
written a small book titled “Life in Texon.”
Some material from the book is used here with permission. Come join the
Legion To the Editor, I joined
American Legion Post 160 in Terrell County a couple of months ago and am
surprised at how few veterans attend the meetings. There were
eight veterans at the first meeting and all but one of them were Vietnam era
or older. At the second meeting I attended, there were nine veterans in
attendance. Currently, there
are 30 paid post members. All but three are Anglo. This is a shame because
all the members I have talked to truly want our Hispanic brother vets and
younger vets as members. We need as
many qualified vets as possible to get involved if we are going to accomplish
the goals we have set out to help our community. While we enjoy
socializing with other members, we also want to do community service projects
that will help all of Sanderson. We are
currently sponsoring Boys State, where outstanding high school juniors attend
the one-week event in Austin on the University of Texas campus, the Memorial
Day placement of American flags at veterans' grave sites, serving free meals
to seniors at the Legion hall and making the hall available for charity fund
raisers. Things we want
to do include a fund to help veterans in need and sponsoring a Legion
oratorical contest for high school students with the winner competing against
other winners for Legion-paid college scholarships. Also we hope to
form an honor guard to honor our fellow veterans with a 21-gun salute at
their funerals and present programs in conjunction with the school system to
stress the importance of service, voting and of being an informed and vocal
citizen. Finally, we
want to sponsor a youth sports team or work in some way with those who are
already giving our young people recreational participation. All of this
requires participating, dedicated members. If this sounds like the kind of
things you want for your county and your families, then get involved. You can
contact Dean Autrey at 432/290-4168, Bill Hawn at 345-2509, Rick Garro at
345-2798, Chip Zuniga at 345-2454 or me at 432/386-7654 or any other Legion
member. Finally, let
me mention our Auxiliary, Unit 160. From what I have seen, these ladies are
the heart and soul of the Legion Post. The military
uses the term “force multiplier” and that is what these ladies are. Thank you and
please join us or the Auxiliary. Sanderson needs you. James Travis US Air Force, retired Sanderson |
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