Oh, Lord, it's hard!

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror 'cause I get better looking each day.

Thus began a fun song by Mac Davis a few years ago. Everyone loved that song - first, because of Mac Davis. Second, because the tongue-in-cheek lyric was so useful.

If, say, you won a sports trivia argument with a buddy and wanted to gloat a bit, just burst into song: "Oh, Lord it's hard to be humble."

I even had a salesman friend who strove to bolster his own self-confidence by wearing a T-shirt that paraphrased Mac Davis by declaring "I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow 'cause I get Better Looking Every Day."

Sadly, it wasn't always tongue-in-cheek. Too many took the Hard To Be Humble attitude seriously. We've all seen the Hard To Be Humble athlete who, having received unspendable millions for his sports prowess, suddenly became an authority on any subject at hand.

But, the entertainment industry is where you most often find it hard to be humble. Hollywood is awash with Hard To Be Humble devotees. Kids are born with a beautiful face. Through luck or training grow into a beautiful adult body, and acquire an acting, or perhaps a musical skill. Then they traipse about the world, spreading their often idiotic views on politics, the economy, or whatever alse you want to discuss.

The most glaring example in this summer of 2008 is Barack Obama. His handlers parade him into a crowd of screaming fans, more interested in having fun than a serious policy discussion. He shouts his teleprompted speech into the microphone, girls faint, and everyone says he is an eloquent speaker.

In an entirely different song, Billy Ray Cyrus worried that the wrong kind of information might cause his Achy Breaky Heart to blow up! Like the sparrow that arrived at the Wedding Chapel just after the big ceremony and gorged itself on rice thrown at the bride. Inside the sparrow's craw, the rice expanded and the poor bird exploded like an Achy Breaky Heart.

With Barack, I worry more about his head. Signs are already showing. He no longer just walks on stage... he swaggers to the podium. He speaks of his promised accomplishments and makes pronouncements that are almost spiritual. Another three and a half months of non-stop adulation by adoring fans; another coronation by the media and poor Obama's head may just become too overloaded and, boom!

Energy, Texas Style.

The people of Texas are remarkable. They look life squarely in the eye and never seem afraid to face a challenge. I have long admired the Texans who put up with smelly oil fields so others can tool around in their sports cars, in cities where the population flatly refuses to allow oil drilling or refinement anywhere near their environs.

Now it is wind turbines. I keep hearing people complain about wind turbines - for any number of reasons - most of which seem frivolous to me. but, in their usual can-do spirit, Texans accept the turbines by the thousands! No exaggeration... there are thousands of these things in Texas.

Distance fools the eye, and even when you stand under one of these things and look up at it, it is hard to appreciate its size!

The height of the individual turbines is determined by the prevailing wind patterns, but they appear to vary in height from 200 to 400 feet.

It is not until you look at the base of one of these beauties and see the access port which allows workmen to reach the ladder that takes you to the very top.

Yes, there could be people inside that distant turbine you see. They provide necessary maintenance to keep it churning out the megawatts.

I wondered what a technician might do once they reached the top... until I walked up close to one of the nacels sitting on the ground before it was mounted on its tower.

These things are the size of a motor home, and may contain all the comforts of home, for all I know.

Finally, there are the propellor blades which actually catch the wind and do the work.

Like every other part of this enterprise, they are huge.

When I was a small boy on a Missouri farm, we heated and cooked with wood burning stoves. What drudgery it was for my mother to start, control and clean up after a wood fire in her kitchen stove.

These beautiful, white turbines make it possible for a modern American to just flip a switch and produce heat to cook dinner. How beautiful can that be?

Yes, there are wind turbines in other places. There are none, however, off-shore in Massachusetts. Why spoil that scenery when the Texans are happy to provide them their electricity?

Sports...where good news is still good.

I spent 25 years in radio broadcasting, much of it reporting news. We had a couple of simple guidelines for deciding if we should cover a story. Does our audience already know this news? Is it important to them? If our audience doesn’t know about it, it is news to them. If it clearly is not important to them... who cares about the story.

Today, good news doesn’t sell... or so the modern journalists tell us. It doesn’t matter if your audience is aware of that good news, or how important it may be to them. If it is good news... forget it, especially if it credits any government at any level.

I have wondered what would happen if there were a big football game scheduled but there were no sports people to do the broadcast? What if they had to pull some people from the regular "hard" news department to do the broadcast! And, what if, (horror of horrors) they had to enlist certain politicians to provide color?

As the home team takes the field. Imagine the newsman/sportscaster decrying the fact that they are not fielding enough players. That they are ill-trained and ill-equipped. Now the color man insists that this game is lost... irretrievably lost. It is foolish to spend the money to keep this team on the field... pull them out and let’s all go home.

The newsman/sportscaster endlessly covers some congestion in the parking lot, and decries the long lines of fans still waiting to get into the stadium. He provides a blow by blow description of a small fight that has broken out somewhere in the stands. He informs us all that there are not enough restrooms and the prices are too high at the concession stands.

The color man accuses the players of bad behavior but fails to substantiate his claims.

The newsman/sportscaster complains about the behavior of the coaches standing on the sidelines. When a sideline reporter interviews a coach, the booth insists that the coach is lying and misleading the public as to why his team is here, what it hopes to accomplish and what it is costing to keep the team on the field. We are never told about the actual playing on the field.

The color man insists that they support the players, but want this team off the field immediately.

No, that will never happen. In sports, alone, it is still okay to cheer for your side. It is still considered prudent to withhold criticism of the team and the coaches until after the game and we have learned the results of their efforts.

Wow. Can we put the sports department in charge of all news?