Cartoons, Controversy, Cowardice and Mr. Caffery

The firepoint on Beaumont John Caffery's fuse apparently met the bomb in recent days in regard to the zealous dustup over the Muslim-themed cartoons that have sparked deadly protests worldwide.
Caffery, irked over what he called U.S. newspapers' cowardice in not publishing the cartoons, took matters into his own hands Sunday and erected an impressive 4-by-8-foot sign in his West End front yard. A drawing depicts Muhammad's head, shaped like a bomb with a lighted fuse. Next to it, spelling errors and all, is this message:

For This Cartoon In Danish & Nowegian Newspapers Muslems Worldwide Have Rioted, and Killed and Now Offer $11 Million Reward To Kill The Cartoonist.

Caffery goes on to give his phone number and e-mail address. And his job title: Realtor.
Considering the bloody uproar over the cartoons, Caffery certainly has guts, albeit guts that could use some help from Webster's. (Like all of us could.)
He raises an interesting question over newspapers' decision whether to publish the cartoons. I only know of one newspaper - The Philadelphia Inquirer - that ran a cartoon, doing so Feb. 4. An editorial two days later said the cartoon's publication was "to inform our readers, not to inflame them," according to an Enterprise story today.
Enterprise reporter F.A. Krift, who wrote the Caffery story, received several e-mails today regarding his story.

One reader said:

"I am not in favor of hurting anyone's feelings based on his religion, but giving up our freedom of the press (which was paid for with the lives of many Americans) is the wrong thing to ask in respecting a person's faith. This is not about faith anyway; it's about world power. What Mr. Caffery has done is important in retaining our freedom of expression. Our media has suddenly lost their interest in free expression."

And a second, from Kentucky:

"BRAVO to Mr. Caffery."

And a third:

"I enjoyed reading the article but as usual the Muslim Imam lost the reason for the whole sign. The Imam asked what the point was for putting up something that hurts. Good question, why have we seen video's on the internet of Christians being beheaded, shot or worse? Why do we see professed Muslims' killing innocent men, women, and children in the name of Allah? SO, from what the Imam is saying Christians must do as Muslims' say but Muslins' can do anything hurtful to Christians. Wow, reality, what a concept."

And another, from Wisconsin:

"THANK YOU FOR YOUR SIGN. I wrote and wrote to the Wisconsin State Journal and the Capital Times newspapers for days asking why they would not print the cartoons or at least give their readers the whole story. I was told by the publisher that it "is not considered a matter of free speech." Where do we go from here? Nobody will be able to say anything soon that is not acceptable to an arbitrary judge. The newspapers have no reason to exist if they can't stand up for freedom of speech."

So freedom of speech and newspaper decisions clearly are being called into question.

Sure, The Enterprise could run the cartoons. It has the freedom and corporate permission to do so. It also has the freedom to run a Swastika on Page 1A. Or a big picture of the editor's favorite beer. Or an advertisement for an adult book store. Or just a random multicolored shape with lightning bolts coming out of it.
Editors make tough decisions daily, and the decision regarding the cartoons was one of those once-in-awhile kind of challenges. The public's right to know vs. sensitivity. Free speech vs. good taste.
Like most newspapers other than The Philadelphia Inquirer, we didn't run them. The decision was based on sensitivity, good taste and the fact that they would be published just for the sake of exercising our First Amendment muscles.
Furthermore, all of those images, including the really offensive ones, can be found on the Internet. And if you didn't have Internet access, you wouldn't be reading this blog.
But then along came Mr. Caffery and his sign, and that raised new questions about how to play the photos of his sign. Should we shoot it from the back? Should we crop out the potentially offensive image? Should we run a photo at all?
Ultimately, as luck would have it, a jogger came along and served as an obstruction between camera lens and Muhammad bomb, so we got our king cake and ate it, too.
Nevertheless, the issue underscores the unenviable world of making news decisions as well as illustrates the importance of when to exercise free-press restraint.

KBON: Where Mardi Gras Never Stops

Part of adjusting - and coping - to temporary news quarters while newsroom restoration work is under way has been cranking up the music.
Assistant Managing Editor Pete Churton and I are highly knowledgeable institutions when it comes to music and its history (at least we think we are), and working side-by-side has given us the opportunity to cross-pollinate.
He introduced me to soul king Wilson Pickett, for example, and I turned him onto Hum, an obscure alternative group from the 1990s. Every day is a new educational experience. We trade CDs almost on a daily basis.
However, for the past few days, we've been locked into this wonderful little Louisiana radio station, KBON, 101.1 FM. It can't be picked up by car antenna in Southeast Texas, but you can get to it online at http://www.kbon.com/support.html and play it through your computer.
I learned about it through newsroom assistant Marie Richard, who had it going at her desk on the other side of the first floor.
I got it going on Murderer's Row - where three editors, including Churton and Associate Managing Editor Sheila Friedeck, work elbow-to-elbow - and it has been a Cajun music festival ever since. One minute, Rosie Ledet is hammering away at her accordion, and the next, Chuck Berry is ripping a guitar solo and then Elvis is singing about a teddy bear. The station, based in
Eunice, La., calls its playlist "Cajun Pop," but the styles range from zydeco to blues to soul to gospel to old-timey rock 'n' roll. Heck, I think I heard an ancient Hank Williams song on there the other day.
Nothing enhances the experience of editing a Port Arthur school board story like a little Fats Domino followed by some Aaron Neville singing "Tell It Like It Is."
But perhaps the best part of KBON is the attitude. This station is independent - void of being under the thumb of some heavy-handed corporation telling it what to play - and proud of it.
Yesterday, I was so inspired that I fired off the following e-mail to the station:

Howdy!
I'm a journalist in Beaumont, Texas.
Hurricane Rita kicked our newsroom's butt, so we're all displaced throughout
the building while repairs are under way.
I work downstairs with another editor. We recently discovered the online
link to the music, and we haven't turned it off since.
It kicks ass!
Play more Rosie Ledet!!!!
Ooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Brian

I figured I wouldn't hear anything from them, but sure enough, this spicy e-mail was waiting for me when I arrived at work this morning:

Bonjour Brian. Thanks for listening.
As you may know, KBON 101.1FM is a locally owned radio station (sole-proprietorship). We are not part of the "corporate cookie-cutter" radio stations that use charts to determine what to play. We have no charts here at KBON.
Why would we depend on someone from a far away state to tell us what to play here in Acadiana. Chances are the national charts are put together by someone who has never been to our part of Louisiana, never ate a link of boudin with freshly cooked cracklins and who never sucked a crawfish head. What would they know about our people & our music?? Chances are, NUTTIN! All the music played on KBON is selected by us for our local
listeners. Of course we share our music with the world at www.kbon.com.
Merci,
Paul Marx
http://www.eunice-la.com/pmarx.html
Owner/KBON 101.1fm
www.kbon.com

How refreshing it is to see a radio station marching to its own washboard beat and thumbing its nose to the corporate giants that have turned myriad radio stations into little more than vehicles of noise pollution.

Winter, We Hardly Knew Ye, And That's A Bad Thing

The start of hurricane season is about three months away, and early predictions call for a season as intense as last year's, maybe worse.
Why?
Because of a wimpy winter.
Here we are at February's end, and the air already is getting warm and juicy. Recent temperatures have poked into the low 80s. Only once during winter did temperatures get low enough to kill some of my backyard plants.
Having grown up and lived in Texas all my life, I know that there'll be at least one, perhaps two, more cold blasts to come, but as far as warming the Gulf of Mexico is concerned, it'll be too little, too late.
The warmer-than-usual Gulf, means potentially nasty as well as earlier-than-usual hurricane season. The ocean was warm enough for Tropical Storm Zeta to form and wander around in the Atlantic in January.
AccuWeather.com, looking at various factors ranging from a weak El Nino to surface pressure and atmospheric steering currents, calls for "an extremely active Atlantic basin hurricane season" with "intense hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico."
Taking into account that the hurricane strikes in recent years seem to be moving west, going from Florida to Alabama to Mississippi and Louisiana and then into Texas, I believe, in my ignorant, undereducated opinion, that Texas is going to get hammered this year.
In this article - http://wwwa.accuweather.com/promotion.asp?dir=aw&page=winterfrcst - 2005-06 is being compared with 1995-96. 1995 became the second-busiest tropical since since 1871. 1996 was unusual because every tropical despression ultimately became strong enough to get a name, and two hurricanes bashed the North Carolina coast.
As best as I can tell, though, Texas has never had major hurricanes hit the coast in back-to-back years.
Looking at this - http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/commish/storms/hhistory.html - the intervals are all over the place, but no back-to-back years.
However, I just have a gut feeling that Texas, perhaps Southeast Texas, is going to get smacked this year, and all the meteorological elements are in place for this to happen.
We'll see.

Let Bylines Be Bylines

There it is. On Page 116. In italics beneath an article about as long as a No. 2 pencil. My byline.
Last November, I drove to Mississippi and ran a sparsely-participated-in marathon at the Stennis Space Center.
I thought the fact that the race organizers even had the event after Hurricane Katrina galloped through three months earlier was a statement underscoring the enduring spirit of runners. I thought it would make a good story.
Before I went, I pitched the idea to Runner's World magazine, and to my surprise, an editor said the publication would be glad to take a brief from me and place it in the road-race section in the back. They said it might appear in the March issue.
I was elated.
Runner's World isn't a huge magazine - about 77,000 circulation monthly compared to The Beaumont Enterprise daily circulation of around 55,000. Nevertheless, copies can be found in book stores, groceries and airports nationwide. I have lots of runner friends everywhere who read it.
Bylines are a funny thing. I've had thousands of them during my 20-year career, including a few dozen in The Enterprise. For some stories, I've been mighty proud to have my byline atop them. For others, it was just common newspaper practice, showing readers who was responsible for what they were about to read. That sometimes leads to news tips.
I've often wondered whether readers actually look at bylines. If I'm reading another newspaper, I typically don't look. Sometimes, I look and see someone I know and wonder how they wound up there. Occasionally, I'll fire off an e-mail to a long-lost colleague and re-establish an acquaintance.
But do average readers really care?
I suppose so, if the story stirs them. Maybe they'll call to extend a kudo or butt kick. I get a lot of both for just having my name and phone number atop the Region page of our daily publication. I get a lot of circulation calls, too, which is like calling the Sears tire department to ask about lingerie, but I'm happy to guide the disgruntled subscribers to those who can help. After all, a content subscriber is a loyal subscriber.
As for news stories, getting a byline, particularly over a sox-knocking piece of work, is a kick that in a small way offsets the fact we, salarywise, don't fall into the same range as doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, realtors, engineers, accountants and maybe the guy who just put a new roof on your house. There is something cool about picking up Page 1A and seeing your name over an important story.
A boss long ago told me that a general goal of community newspapering should be to get every subscriber's name in the paper at least once a year, at least in sections of the publication outside the police blotter. I emphasize to starry-eyed reporters that a brief detailing a person's accomplishment is just as important as The Big Page 1A Story.
During my five years here, I've seen clipped-out Enterprise articles everywhere, from framed stories on business walls to tiny briefs hanging from refrigerator magnets in homes. Today, while conducting some realty exploration with my wife during my lunch hour, I noticed that a prospective seller had clipped out an Enterprise article about a job promotion years ago, framed it and stuck it prominently on a shelf, next to pictures of his five kids.
Whether buried at the bottom of a Page 11Z story or as a Page 1A byline, getting a name in the newspaper is a big deal, four syllables of fame in my case.
So getting a tiny byline at the bottom of a brief on Page 116 of the March issue of Runner's World, a magazine I've read subscribed to for a decade, means a lot to me, even if no one but my wife and I notices.

- Blog entry by Brian Pearson

First Bike Ride With Son

The little red bike with the plastic training wheels had been taken for a spin or two around the back porch, but Curt's first real ride down the street didn't come until Sunday, about three weeks after he got the bicycle for his fourth birthday.
His bike is a lot cooler than my first bike. His, with its snazzy artwork, looks like a Lilliputian mountain bike. Mine looked like the thing Dorothy rode to flee the tornado.
I'd been meaning to do the father-son bike ride for three weeks, but one thing or another prevented us from doing so.
So yesterday, after church, it was time to saddle up and go for a ride.
I secured his little safety helmet and put on mine. I made some adjustments to his training wheels and then pumped up the tires on my mountain bike. I made a minor show of it. The preparations added to the experience for Curt.
Setting off down the street, the going was slow at first. Curt is the kind of guy who likes to stop and kick the ant piles. I suppose I'm kind of like that, too.
We went so slow that keeping the bike from falling over became a challenge. In an effort to get Curt to pick up the pace, I raced down the street to show him how fast a bike could go. This only made him stop and holler at me. I tried circling him, but then he'd just circle, too, like a couple of birds with nothing better to do than lazily ride the air currents.
Eventually, he picked up the pace on his own terms, and we were riding side-by-side around the half-mile neighborhood loop.
By the time we got back to the house, he was tuckered and begging for juice and lunch. We methodically parked our bikes, took off our helmets and stored them away.
The experience reminded me of the long bike rides I used to take with my dad. We'd maybe only go six or seven miles total, but when you're a kid, distances such as that seem so much longer, and the adventure so much more profound.
There'll be many father-son bike trips in my future, but yesterday's leisurely half mile will be one trek I'll never forget.

The Rita Book Is Here!

The Beaumont Enterprise photography staff did an outstanding job capturing Hurricane Rita's handiwork. Now, the best images have been skillfully organized into a book, "Rita Captured."
The Enterprise staff had no idea whether anyone but us would buy it. I suspect that for the photographers, part of the motivation behind the book was to help put the catastrophe in perspective and serve as an outlet for sharing with others what they experienced, kind of like I do with this blog.
But then the orders starting pouring in, as did the subsequent telephone calls from customers demanding to know when they would receive their copy of "Rita Captured." As time went on, the calls increased, as did the terseness of the demanding customers' voices.
The books finally arrived over the weekend, and Enterprise staffers quickly went to work taking them out of boxes and stuffing them into envelopes for mailing. Last night, the photo staff had a wildly successful private book signing. This morning, a steady stream of people has come into our lobby to pick up copies.
What they're getting for their money is a moving photo account of what many Southeast Texans didn't see during the storm's immediate aftermath. Evacuees who returned three weeks - or even one week - after the storm saw a lot of damage, but what they witnessed didn't come close to the wild green tangle in the hours and days after Rita passed Sept. 24.
What a mess.
It was anarchy on the highway as the few cars out and about drove the wrong way down streets and up into yards to get around the fallen trees, power lines and street lamps. Beaumont looked like some kind of primitive jungle. It was simultaneously eery, surreal, jaw-dropping and beautiful.
I often wonder what the night was like for the foolhardy souls who rode out Rita in their homes as the symphony of mayhem terrorized with snapping trees, howling wind and powerwash rain. The handful of residents I encountered after the storm were shell-shocked and had the 1,000-yard stare. I'm confident they'll be the first ones out the next time a storm rumbles into the Gulf of Mexico and turns this way. Heck, they might skedaddle every time a wispy mass of clouds rolls off the east Africa coast.
But "Rita Captured" doesn't just focus on Sept. 24 and the days that followed. It chronicles the evacuation as well as the evacuees' return, the spectacular damage and the herculean cleanup effort.
It also shows Southeast Texans at their finest, from humorous yard signs to people helping one another. While the damage photos are stunning, it's the people photos, such as the one of the cute little girl with a Band Aid on her forehead, that make the book compelling and give it a unique personality.
In the end, "Rita Captured" speaks more about Southeast Texans' resiliency than it does about hurricane power.

Finding New Stuff Is Cool

It must have been quite exciting centuries - or even decades - ago when the adventurous spirit of the human race resulted in eye-popping, world-wowing discoveries.
Imagine being around when dinosaur bones were first unearthed, when airplanes first crossed oceans without stopping, when planets were discovered and named.
The quest, sadly, has had a law of diminishing returns in recent times. With so much focused on our planet's human toils, such as war abroad and health care and the economy on the domestic front, the bold, ambititious exploration that once captured the imagination has been mothballed for the most part.
That's why it's cool when something new comes along, such as the recent discovery in Indonesia of all kinds of new animal species as well as animals thought to be extinct.
Traveling by helicopter, a team of scientists landed in some remote Indonesia mountains and discovered a treasure chest of strange critters living in what they called a "Lost World," according to an Associated Press story. The AP also put out a bunch of cool photos, some of which I posted but killed because it did weird things to the blog format.
More than 20 new frog species alone were found in December during the National Geographic Society-funded expedition, organized by the U.S.-based Conservation International and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. Scientists also ran across an egg-laying mammal, a tree kangaroo, four new butterfly species and all kinds of funky plants and birds. They added that they had only scratched the surface in the 2 million square acres of tropical forest. The group got so caught up making one discovery after another that it rarely ventured more than a few miles from base camp.
What they didn't discover were any signs of humans. Many of the animals had so little fear of humans that the scientists could pick them up. They even picked up this thing that looked like a hairy hedgehog and brought it back to camp.
What's doubly amazing is that this discovery was made in a nation torn by rebellion and overrun by terrorists.
So, here, in remote place in this crazy, strife-torn world, we've discovered something pristine, new and wonderous. For more, go to: http://www.conservation.org
I just hope we don't screw it up like we have with other remarkable finds throughout our bull-in-a-china-shop history.

Hey, I Know A Survivor Contestant!

The CBS show "Survivor" has been a part of my Thursday night television viewing all the way back to its inaugural season in 2000.
My wife and I have yet to miss a season and fewer than a half dozen episodes. There's just something fun about reality television. "Survivor" is like "As the World Turn" meets "Lord of the Flies." It should have have pole-vaulted over the shark by now, I guess, but it seems to still being going strong.
Until the new season, "Survivor Panama," kicked off last night, the only time there was any contestant with a thread of a connection to my life was some Fort Hood soldier in the second season who got booted after supposedly smuggling in beef jerky. I was working in Killeen at the time.
So my wife and I are watching "Survivor" last night, and suddenly she says, "Hey, isn't that the Misty Giles we know from Killeen?"
Sure enough, a quick Internet search answered that question:
http://www.cbs.com
Back in Killeen, where I was managing editor of the newspaper from 1997 to 2001, I served with Misty on several committees, including the America's Promise team. She was also Miss Teen Texas, and my wife interviewed her for a story about it.
I remember Misty, who was a high schooler and around 17 years old at the time, as just about the most well-rounded young adult I've ever known. She performed all kinds of community service and could be found working with all kinds of school and civic groups. She acted like a corporate executive.
Today, she lives in Dallas and works as an engineer.
During last night's "Survivor" episode, as part of some new game twist, she had to spend a night all by herself on Exile Island, where she ate worms and slept on the ground as menacing-looking snakes slithered about.
The upside of Exile Island is that there is something hidden there that will keep a competitor from getting voted out of the game at a Tribal Council, which is where contestants go to vote off each other.
Misty may or may not have found her ticket to one-time salvation on Exile Island. Regardless, she made an effort to make the other competitors think she had it.
I suppose being sneaky just adds to her well-roundedness, and I look forward to watching her compete for that $1 million "Survivor" prize.

For Whom The School Bell Tolls

Perhaps no other newspaper beat has as much diversity, excitement and importance as education.
From wide-eyed kindergarteners on their first school day to retirees and their property taxes, education isn't just about blackboards and school boards. School districts typically have a community's highest tax rate. They often are a town's largest employer. State and national issues play heavily into day-to-day school operations. Teachers. Parents. Children. Bus drivers. Administrators. Academics. Athletics. And on and on.
Even if you live in an apartment and have no children, a school district's tax rate affects your rent. And if a school district is bad, it can affect a community's reputation. Business retention and recruiting suffers. People don't want to live there.
Get the picture?
So when it comes to something such as the current superintendent crisis in the troubled Port Arthur Independent School District, there is much at stake in its outcome.
The controversy is rather bizarre, starting with a simple PAISD school board agenda faxed Monday to The Enterprise. The agenda contained two eyebrow-raising items: consideration of Superintendent Willis Mackey's resignation and the appointment of a temporary replacement.
Mackey had a tough mission when he took the top PAISD post in 2003, from smoothing the edges off consolidating the three high schools into one to getting voter approval of a $10 million bond issue.
Since then, controversy has erupted over the proposed site of a new high school building. The board remains as dysfunctional as ever. The state sent in a monitor and then replaced it with a more powerful conservator last year after friction persisted between Mackey and the board. It recently was underscored when Mackey and trustees grew at odds over the superintendent's personnel decisions.
It is the classic board vs. superintendent battle that has taken place in countless Texas school districts year after year, decade after decade, since the public education system was created.
Now, PAISD is in danger of a full-blown state takeover - a rare thing in the state - and Mackey's future with the district has grown cloudy. The Enterprise for two days has tried to pin him down, but he hasn't made himself available at work or home and will not return repeated telephone calls. Rumors are flying like Hurricane Rita debris.
A group of community representatives, including church leaders, has expressed support for Mackey. Others have said it is time for Mackey's departure.
The situation is unlikely to clear up until Thursday, when the PAISD board will take action on the two aforementioned agenda items.
No matter what happens, the issue marks yet another negative feather in that embattled school district's hat of non-progress. Ultimately, the entire community, particularly its most precious resource - the children - suffer.