Too long on land.

The explosion at the refinery in Texas City has affected me personal level. I am here in La Porte Texas waiting to board a freighter for a month long voyage to various ports along central and South America and some Caribbean Islands. I have been lugging 50 plus pounds of documents and newspaper clippings all the way from New York. The papers are research for a book/documentary I have been working on for a few years.
I had plan to use some of the time on this voyage to delve into the project full time. However the explosion at Texas City has closed the Houston Ship channel and I have no idea when the ship will arrive and I will be able to board. I feel like Ismael in Moby Dick.
Anyway dear readers I may not be able to post for about a month as the only media I will have is a shortwave radio. But, keep checking in as who knows where along the journey I may be able to post.

Fill up your gas tanks!

I was packing the car in Galveston Texas this afternoon when I heard what I thought was a sonic boom. When I got in the car and started to head to Houston I noticed a big plume of black smoke rising in the northeast. It seems the third largest U.S. refinery in Texas City has had an explosion.
With gas prices already hitting over $2.00 even here in Texas it seems the middle class worker is about to take another hit in the wallet because of this explosion. Gas prices are high yet we have two oil men in the White House. How does this happen? I'm sure the Russians where asking the same thing back in the eighties when the CIA covertly gave them defective software that caused a major gas pipeline to explode.

As the saying goes:
"When asking why things happen. It is sometimes useful to ask who benefits?"

Road Food

Driving from New Orleans to toward Texas to catch freighter in Houston. Acting on tip given to me in New Orleans by a local boy from Lafayette La. Stopped for lunch at Prejeans which is now in my top ten list for restaurants to go back to. Chicken Sausage Gumbo and stuffed Alligator tail were something to blog about. I think I remember James Carville ranting about this place somewhere in the electronic media.

It's still the economy!

Day two aboard the Amtrak Crescent traveling from the Big Apple to the Big Easy. My companion at lunch was a "mountain man" looking fellow from central Il. He was just laid off from the second shift at a Mitsibishi plant there. Only one shift now operating. Note to Dubya ya need to get out more and meet some people like this.
I'm not to worried about this fellow. He also raises mules and heads off with several of them each fall and goes Elk hunting Colorado. I'd be more concerned about some of his laid off co-workers with families who are now without jobs.

AMTRAK CRESCENT

Boarded the Amtrak Crescent on St. Pat's Day in New York for trip down to new Orleans and beyond eventually driving to Houston and boarding a freighter to visit ports along Central and South American coasts for about twenty days.
Had dinner with manager of one of the Amtrak routes in the Midwest and discussed Amtrak and railroading. He was a fifth generation railroader and even gave me the secret to keeping the Amtrak Sunset Limited on time as it travels from Florida to LA.

Wolfowitz on the prowl.

Well it looks like another neocon has found a personal exit strategy out of Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz has somehow gotten President Bush to nominate him to the World Bank. Like many of the other neocons who pushed the snafu that is called Iraq and slithered away from the mess that they created. Wolfie is leaving too and letting someone else clean up the mess.
Wolfowitz is not he only one to beat it out of Baghdad. The Italians announced they will be pulling out by September.

St. Patrick's Day memory

When St. Pat's day rolls around each year I keep thinking about an old Puerto Rican woman I use to work with. She never had much money and worked for a guy who had the contract to provide coffee and donuts for us workers toiling on the over-night shift. She smoked like a chimney and was haggard looking as all of us were who worked when others slept.
She was cranky woman (as all of us working over night were) who did not seem to have any family that we know of. But, she took teasing and could give as good as she got. She would sit in a chair near the coffee and hot water urns keeping an eye on the donuts and bagels and especially the milk which seemed to be rationed for only coffee and tea. Making comments and such.
On St. Pats Day one of my co-workers would wait until she left her guard post to deliver some pastries to an office area on another floor. Once she was gone he would put green food dye into the urn that made the hot water for tea. She fly into a rage once she got back and discovered what had happened and it happened every year. She passed away must be ten years ago now but, St. Patricia Day always brings back the memory of this hard working Puerto Rican woman struggling to make a living as we all were.

Make em sweat!

Seems a scandal is brewing involving the city of Newark New Jersey using Homeland Security money to buy some high tech garbage trucks. The outrage comes from a WCBS radio newscaster who mentioned that the trucks were "air conditioned".
Let's see some elite media news annoucer is outraged because the working stiff who is picking up garbage during a hot sticky Newark summer should not be allowed a few minutes of cool comfort while he picks up all the crap we throw out. That annoucer will be sitting nice and cool in his air conditioned booth while the sanitation guy is sweating out in the street. My hat tips to the sanitation guy who is doing the more important job for all of us.

Buenos Dias illegals!

New York's WCBS Newsradio reports that local Police and immigration officals rounded up members of a violent gang with roots in El Salvador. Hats off to those who conducted the operation. Once again it is the local authorties cleaning up the Federal Governments failures. It's local politicans like Long Island Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy who are making things move in a positive direction in regards to the illegal immigration problem in Long Island communities and he is a Democrat. Bush does not have a clue.

Leaving Bushworld

I just barely made the 9am Amtrak Acela train out of Washington yesterday. The track work that has been going on in the Washington Metro slows things quite a bit. The train was crowded with people leaving D.C. heading up to New York and Boston to see shows or just get away for the weekend. I however was getting away for a more extended period of time.
My last day of work was Friday March 11th. I would be stopping work for awhile getting away from Washington, the media, politics etc... I'm not taking a vacation I am taking a journey. One that would begin later this week taking me to a part of this country I had never seen before and then on to some dangerous countries.
The journey will begin on St. Patricks Day or Evacuation Day as it is known in Boston. The journey starts in New York City and wanders through about 12 states and six countries in the next month. How to pack for such a journey is troubling. I need to balance mobility and security. I still have a few days to figure this out.