Sleezy Texas labor law loophole

I am not up on the labor laws everywhere around the world, but we have a nasty one here in Texas.

State law allows employers to fire an employee and reel that person back into the office the instant they apply for unemployment benefits. This happens because a fired worker can be denied the money if they turn down work, so Mr. Business takes something of a feudel lordship over the worker in question.

State legislators need to take note of this. The chatter about this is rising statewide and will sooner or later make its way to the media and voting booth.

Worth repeating

Fellow blogger Jonathan Blundell at www.jdblundell.blogspot.com notes that it will be interesting to read what the Belton Journal http://www.beltonjournal.com/ will print about the Ramonce Taylor arrest and events around that incident.

That might be the most interesting, assuming something will be printed on the matter.

Words, brilliant words

Austin American-Statesman reporter Richard Kreytak reports that troubled Texas runningback Ramonce Taylor's marijuana arrest in Bell County came after Taylor and party-crashing friends were asked to leave.

No one's proved anything yet, but the pecan farmer is quoted as saying "they were asked to leave because we don't condone drugs."

And that doesn't prove anything, either. It leaves questions.

However, Kreytak got some excellent thought-provoking quotes from Taylor's attorney Buck Harris.

Robert "Buck" Harris said the drugs do not belong to Taylor and that if his client knew there were drugs in the car he would not have given Bell County sheriff's deputies permission to search his vehicle.
"He's not playing hide the ball. If he's carrying five pounds of marijuana either he's the stupidest person alive or thinks he's bulletproof," Harris said after the brief hearing.
"It would be a tragedy for any young person. It just so happens he's a famous young person. . . . Less than five months ago, he was the king of the mountain. . . . And today, he's just another young man in trouble."

Just another case?

The marijuana arrest of University 0f Texas back Ramonce Taylor has that nasty sound of another case of a young guy who forgot about what he's got going for him and played outside the lines too much. Wasted talent, or that taken for granted can lead to many bad things as case after case over the many years keep bearing out. For his sake, I hope it's like his attorney said, and not his pot, but still being in possession could leave some serious problems, anyway.

The nature of the arrest sounds odd, but possession is still possession and that can take some time to determine who was in possession in long, expensive court proceedings.

Bad mark for Taylor is that he was really already off the UT football team, which doesn't work well in character portrayal. He was scheduled to be a junior in the fall. The wording is that he did not practice with the team in the spring because he was pursuing academics, but in such dealings, especially after another sketchy incident he was involved in in Austin, it just isn't looking good a this stage.

The Associated Press is reporting:

Taylor told deputies he didn't have a gun and gave them permission to search his vehicle. Deputies reported finding a a live .40-caliber bullet and the backpack with the marijuana, which they said belonged to Taylor.

He's got another one

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar has another moving coming out, which appears to have some of the same formula as before -- leaning toward women and their problems and some general weirdness, but moves into something maybe more cerebral with the living and the dead mixing together in daily activities, but in a somewhat traditional La Mancha sort of way. Almovodar is from La Mancha.

I hope to see this one, and catch up on the ones I missed in recent years, but that will probably mean driving to San Antonio, some 300 miles round trip and some $30, or more, in gasoline.

I do miss the day when my understanding of peninsular Spanish was much better from my 11 trips there. And by the same token, I miss the day when the U.S. dollar when farther there than it does now against the Euro.

And about that friend, watery issue

Of course I have come to the point where Flickr expects me to start paying money to add more photos. Not likely any time soon, unless they'd go for a blog trade out?

Such things are possible. They work trade outs in various mainstream media all the time.

Yes, too much controversy on this blog -- so far.

Plenty of border, immigration issues down here where I live, but age discrimination in the job market is one obscure issue I have failed to see much about in the too often too conservative mainstream media.

The question of the quality of drinking water in Laredo, Texas continues to come up. Last night at a popular downtown hotel and meeting place I was asked if I have heard anything about Ciudad Juarez dumping raw sewage into the Rio Grande? I haven't in some time, but the issue will get more play. As it is, the high-saline solution found in the immediate Laredo-area could be a serious contributor to the weighty issue of obesity here on the border. Salty water is not a good liquid for the weight conscious. Laredo gets its drinking water from the Rio Grande.

My Friend Flickr

The popularity of Flickr.com isn't lost on me at all. I thoroughly recommend it for those in need of a quick escape every now and then and who doesn't need that?!

Those sometimes beautiful photos from faraway South Pacific islands, beautiful mountains in anywhere, sandy deserts, forests, fjords, attractive ladies, etc. Eyebrows are raised and then I'm somewhere else. Thank you contributing photogs. My piece of mind appreciate your pictures.