Where’s the Outrage?

Here is a review of Continental Express flight number 5627, which left Houston April 24, at 10:10 a.m. and arrived in Cincinnati at 1:45 p.m..

It also landed on April 24. It was not a 27-hour flight.

The ticket cost $561.50. Can you imagine all that money to get to Cincinnati?

Above you see a picture of flight number 5627. Needless to say, all the passengers were surprised to be boarding such a plane.

The flight started well because boarding required walking outside and walking up a staircase-on-wheels. I always find this exciting. I pretend I am Charles De Gaulle boarding a plane to Algeria.

I mentioned feeling like General De Gaulle to the flight attendant. By her response, I did not get the impression she shared my excitement.

Once on board, the glamour was gone.

The plane smelled. I can’t quite classify the smell beyond being slightly yucky. The plane smelled from take-off to landing.

Also, my seat was filled with crumbs.

[Read more →]

Tags: General by Texas Liberal
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I wrote this for the Urban News (April 2008):

I just finished watching the History Channel’s two-hour documentary on Martin Luther King narrated by Tom Brokaw. It was extremely well done but… something was missing. There were interviews from civil rights activists like Representative John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young, and Martin Luther King, III, along with thoughtful commentary from contemporary activists including President Bill Clinton, Bono, Forest Whitaker, Jr., and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who grew up in Birmingham.

The program was like a wonderful BBQ sauce that tastes great but is missing some key ingredient or ingredients that give the sauce a pizzazz. That’s what was missing! Pizzazz! In spite of that, I highly recommend it.

As I sit here in my house, in a nice suburban neighborhood, in Arden, North Carolina, I am dictating this column into my Dell computer using sophisticated (translation: expensive) speech-to-text software. I mention this because it takes some capital to do what I’m doing — capital that, in the 1960s, 99% of black Americans didn’t have. My world has been made possible by the sacrifice of Martin Luther King and tens of thousands of others. I’ve attended some of the best schools that our nation has to offer. I have worked at some of the best hospitals because of those who’ve come before me (like my father who was also a doctor). For this, I am forever indebted and grateful. [Read more →]

Tags: Newsletter by ecthompson
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Senator Hillary Clinton and her camp have thrown a ton of information at us. They would like us to believe that she is ahead in the popular vote. Okay. They would like us to believe that Clinton is more electable because she won more big states. Finally, we have been told that Clinton should be the democratic nominee because she has won states with a lot of electoral votes. Those are the arguments. Do you buy ‘em?

Let’s start with the last argument first because it is the most ridiculous. Is there a Democrat alive that doesn’t believe that Obama will win at least 90 percent of the votes that Clinton got during this primary season? No real Democrat will be so upset that their candidate didn’t win that they would vote for a Republican, especially not after seven years of Bush. Nope, that ain’t going to happen. So, this is a terrible argument.

When did winning the big states become a criterion for the democratic nomination? How many big states do you need to win? How big does a state need to be before it is considered a “big” state? Is Montana a big state? How about Utah? I’m thinking that is just another McGuffin. As far as I know, when we started this process four to five months ago, the goal was to win delegates.

Also, Clinton has won the popular vote. This is the best bit of spin that we have been asked to swallow in a long time. Now, for us to do this mental gymnastics we must count the votes from Florida and Michigan. Remember that only Clinton was on the ballot in Michigan. We knew that Michigan and Florida would not be counted before this thing started. So, why all of sudden are we counting Florida and Michigan? It is because the Clinton camp knows that she can’t win the elected delegate count. These are the facts.

All of this spin and the negative ads have caused the good Senator’s own home state newspaper to begin to turn against her. The New York Times called Hillary Clinton’s tactics the low road to victory.

Tags: Election 2008 by ecthompson
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