Today in Texas History – April 26

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Eerste zeereis van een container exact 60 jaar geleden | Flows

From the Annals of Shipping News – In 1956, the SS Ideal X left Port Newark, New Jersey bound for the Port of Houston.  The Ideal X was the world’s first modern container cargo ship.  The IX was a converted World War II T-2 oil tanker Potrero Hills.  She was later purchased by the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, modified to  carry shipping containers and rechristened Ideal X.  She carried 58 containers on her first voyage to Houston where she was met by 58 trucks who hauled away the containers launching a new paradigm for shipping.

Red’s Random Texas Photo of the Day

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GORILLAS DON'T BLOG: Vintage Postcards: Six Flags Over ...

A little known fact – when Six Flags Over Texas first opened in Arlington – people were shot dead in gunfights on “Texas Street” several times a day for the amusement of the park patrons.  As a youth, Red witnessed a few of these mass shooting incidents not knowing that they would later become so commonplace as to barely arouse public ire. The practice made for both high employee turnover and a lower unemployment rate in the area.

Photo from http://www.gorillasdontblog.blogspot.com

Today in Texas History – April 24

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Reproduction Magnolia Petroleum Company Motor Oil Sign ...

From the Annals of Big Oil –  In 1911, the Magnolia Petroleum Company was founded.  The MPC was an unincorporated joint-stock association comprised of several other companies including primarily the John Sealy Company of Galveston. In 1931, Magnolia became an affiliate of Socony-Vacuum Oil Company. The Magnolia Petroleum Company merged with Socony Mobil Oil Company in 1959. Its operations became part of Mobil Oil Company, an operating division of Socony Mobil.

UT-Houston Vanishes

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The powers that be at University of Houston, Our Poor Idiot Governor and whining Sen. John Whitmire got their way.  Instead of another academic flagship coming to the drastically underserved higher education market in Houston, The University of Texas system has put the 300 acres it bought near the South Loop on the market.  Red can’t decide who he is more disappointed in – the Houston powers that were so interested in protecting their little fiefdom of higher ed that they could not see the incredible benefits (jobs, opportunity, research, further real estate development and educational symbiosis) that another major university would bring to Houston – or The UT System for caving in and abandoning the State’s largest city because of some poorly-based opposition.  Whatever.  It is done for a generation and it is doubtful that an opportunity to build a campus so close in to the city center will ever arise again.  This is an incredible loss to Houston and to the state.

And Whining John – not satisfied with having screwed up the opportunity of a lifetime has to then kick UT in the nuts on the way out the door.  Whitmire now gloats as he claims that UT overpaid for the parcel and will have trouble getting its money back.

Red is officially endorsing both Damian Lacroix and Hank Segelke in the Democratic Primary to unseat Whitmire from his Senate seat that he has obviously held for way too long at this point.  Whitmire needs to go!

Today in Texas History

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Roy Orbison Vernon

From the Annals of Rock & Roll – In 1936, Roy Orbison was born at Christ the King Hospital in Vernon.  His family moved to Fort Worth and later Odessa and Wink where he spent much of his childhood.  Orbison got his first guitar as a gift from his father at age 6 and by age 7 Orbison was a dedicated musician.  RO began singing and in a rockabilly band – the Wink Westerners – in high school and met Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash when they played in Odessa.  Orbison attended North Texas State in Denton to study geology in case music did not work out.  After seeing fellow student Pat Boone make a success, Orbison became convinced he could make it as a musician.  Ultimately, Orbison was signed by Sam Phillips of Sun Records but he did not flourish at that studio.  His real success came after leaving Sun and signing with Monument Records. From 1960 to 1966, twenty-two of his singles reached the Billboard Top 40 including No. 1 hits “Running Scared” and “Oh, Pretty Woman.”

Trumph – The Insult Comic President (™)

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The failing New York Times (pay no attention to their subscription rates) and a third rate reporter named Maggie Haterman (get it- I messed with her name?), known as a Crooked H flunkie (funny huh – it’s now Crooked H- get it?) who I don’t speak to and have nothing to do with (I stick to porn stars if you know what I mean), are going out of their way to destroy Michael Cohen and his relationship with me (groveling bootlick) in the hope that he will “flip.” They use non-existent “sources” (like these clowns  working for me in the WH  and all of my so-called friends) and a drunk/drugged up loser who hates Michael (which is just about anyone who has ever met the guy), a fine person (who has taken many bullets for me) with a wonderful family (can’t wait to date his daughter in a few years). Michael is a businessman (a New York Jewish businessman with a Ukranian wife for god’s sake) for his own account/lawyer who I have always liked & respected (even while I made fun of him while making him eat shit). Most people will flip (and somehow all of the sudden tell the truth damn it) if the Government lets them out of trouble (and we’ve got trouble – right here on Pennsylvania Ave – trouble, trouble), even if it means lying or making up stories (which he won’t have to). Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that (again because he won’t have to make up anything) despite the horrible Witch Hunt and the dishonest media (except those morons on Fox & Friends of course)!

Red’s Random Texas Photo of the Day

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Alamo Land: Freakin' Bozo

Captain Gus of KENS-TV – Channel 5 in San Antonio.  Captain Gus was the host of an afternoon children’s TV show that ran from 1953 to 1979 – an amazing run for the format.  Gus hosted a live audience of children with some cornball gags, interviews with the kids and prize drawings from his Wishing Well and featured Popeye cartoons.

Under the crazy red wig and handlebar moustache was pioneer broadcaster Joe Alston, a World War II veteran who had been chief announcer at KTRH-AM radio in Houston before joining KENS as an announcer in 1953. Alston also appeared in several movies including “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “T-Men” and “West Point of the Air” (about Randolph AFB’s pilot-training program).

As a child, Red did not fully appreciate the nihilistic world view presented in Popeye cartoons – the eternal and ultimately unwinnable struggle against oppressive enemies, the male-domination of the species, the all consuming importance of brute force,  the insatiable appetites (Wimpy) driving all human endeavor and the consummate self interest of all mankind.

Today in Texas History – April 20

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From the Annals of Deutschland –  In 1842, the Adelsverein (officially named the Verein zum Schutze deutscher Einwanderer in Texas or Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas) was provisionally organized by German noblemen at Biebrich on the Rhine.  The society was intended to promote German emigration to Texas and is credited with having arranged for more than 7,000 Germans to settle in Texas.  Other than arranging for the initial resettlement of Germans the Society was largely a failure as a business venture.

Joseph of Boos-Waldeck and Victor August of Leiningen-Westerburg-Alt-Leiningen were the first to come to Texas to investigate.  After declining an offer from Pres. Sam Houston for a colony west of Austin, Boos-Waldeck purchased a league of land (4,428 acres) near Industry in current day Fayette County. He named it Nassau Farm in honor of Duke Adolf of Nassau, the patron of the society.  It served as a base for future German immigrants.

He’s Still Lyin’ Ted – He’s just lyin’ for Trump now

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Calling Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Tex) a spineless weasel is truly an insult to spineless weasels in general.  Lyin’ Ted has proven that he will say anything to anyone if he thinks it will result in the greater glorification of all things Ted Cruz.  His latest attempt to curry favor with the Trumpian wing of the GOP is to write a hagiographic testament to Trump in the Time magazine’s new feature on the 100 most influential people of 2018.  Ted practically falls over himself in praising Trump as a great leader.  That same great leader that Ted called “utterly amoral’, a “pathological liar” and a “narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.”

Red defers to Lyin’ Ted’s expertise on narcissism. Oh hell, Red defers to Ted on the pathology of lying as well.  Apparently, Ted was asked by Time to do the piece.  He could have declined and no one would have been the wiser.  But given a chance to suck up and boost his sagging popularity, Ted chose to praise the man who said his wife was purt near ugly as store-bought sin and his Daddy might have helped kill JFK.  It takes an utterly broken moral compass to make the switch from righteous indignation to moral bankruptcy.  And apologies to spineless weasels everywhere.