Monthly Archives: April 2006

General, The Name Game

The Name Game XXXVII

8 Comments

Happy Sunday morning, folks! after a day of overcast cloud, high winds and thunderstorms, the morning here dawned with clear skies and mild temperatures. It’s a beautiful day.

I looked at the morning paper this morning and as is my routine, I browsed the “New Arrivals” column. One hundred and seven birth announcements. Of those, there were forty-three who forsook the traditional, “get married, THEN have kids” pattern.

I find it somewhat notable that unmarried parents are more likely to resort to “innovative” monikers for their offspring.

Continuing on, let’s see what we got out of the paper this morning.

First, let us visit amongst the “Punctuation will give MY kid just the boost in life that he needs” bunch:

Miss Chantel H—- tagged her baby girl with Ja’lyn Amari. She didn’t tag her baby girl wif da daddy’s name…

Mr. & Mrs. Joe T—– named their son Ja’marion.

Mr. & Mrs. Donovan A—- named thier new son Bryden J’Shon. Note the compensation. Since they hid the innovative pucntuation in the middle name, they gave him the added boost of sophistication by capitalizing the first letter after the goofy-assed apostrophe.

Elizabeth W——— and Denzel P—— did the same thing for their new daughter, little Nijah Da’Neisha.

Mr. & Mrs. Eric E—— named their baby girl Ke’Mira Deshaw, thereby hanging the kid with TWO contrived names…

Mr. & Mrs. Brandon V— named their new daughter Jeri E’lise.

And Mr. & Mrs. Antoine V—- have a new daughter, little Lay’lonie Aaliyah. Oooooo-kay…

Next we have names that just defy description:

Miss Kissie (!) S—- and Mr. (I guess) Dana B—– have a new daughter, little Jana Nikeal. Ain’t never seed a “Nikeal” before…

Miss Sheena Lynn T—- has a new son, little Derricque Dysion. What she don’t have is the name of the baby’s dad.

Michael & Monique F—- have a new son, Landon Michael. I’m thinking that the next few kids will be Greene Lorne and Blocker Dan.

Miss Alexis G—— has a new son, Jaylin Makel.

Miss Lashane B——– and Mr. Lawrence B—– have a new daughter, little Desirre Rozia-Marie.

Mr. & Mrs. Michael M—— have a new daughter, Kyleigh Elizabeth. I’m guess ing that’s supposed to be pronounced KY-Lee, but if sho, what was wrong with a simpler spelling like Kylie?

Miss Avelia B——– has a new son, DeShawn. And nobody she wanted to identify as the baby’s daddy…

Next we have three “J’s”:

Jameika W——- and Bryan S—– have a daughter, Jaliyah Tiyan. Somebody likes the letter “y”, too.
Mr. & Mrs. Charles J—— have a new son, Jabari Charles.
Mr. & Mrs. Curtis B——– have a new son, Javon Curtis. There, three “J’s” in a row…

Well, this one almost made it. Dionysha F—– and Donovan B—– have a new boy, Micah Jamayel.

Miss Elizabeth S—– and Mr. Wendell J—- have a new son, Jesiyah Demeriah. How you gonna compete with that?

I’ll TELL you how. You do like this couple did. Miss Monica F—— and Mr. Travis M—– have a new daughter. They wanted to give the child ADVANTAGES in life and make sure that in NO venue would she EVER have to suffer from sharing the same name with another. Therefore, without further ado, I (and they) present TyraYhanni KhaiOujah JhaNe. Folks, I jest not. THIS is in the paer, a public record. I did NOT enhance it in any way by changing spelling or capitalization. Three names. Twenty-four letters total. SIX capitals.

What can I say?

Now, on a slightly different bent, I received a comment from a reader who does not share my awe at the spectacle such as I present above. He writes:

While I giggled when I first read this, the more I thought about it, the more I see it as very insensitive. Names for children are chosen by parents to confer a special status on the precious new life they have just made. Each child is unique and the parents wish them to be unique and to feel unique as they grow up. Some names may seem different to us who are used to mainstream cultural or religious practice. But what is mainstream for us may not be for others of different backgrounds. Please don’t belittle their uniqueness with trivialities about their names.

Now, I’m a sensitive guy, mostly. I do recognize that other cultures will have different names, which is why I seldom comment about the names of kids whose parents’ names are of apparently foreign origin. I don’t comment on names that are the same as that of either parent. Hey, I’m Cajun. As I said before, my own ancestry is rife with names that do not fit the Anglo-Saxon mould.

However, some of these names, like the ones I post above, are just pure mis-guided, mis-directed, and stupid.

“Each child is unique and the parents wish them to be unique and to feel unique as they grow up.” Unique? Yes. But it’s not because your parents tagged you with some name incomprehensibly spelled and pronounced. It’s because you were BORN. Names don’t do that. And while a common name is not going to be an enhancement to a career, unless you’re going to be an NBA player or a rap star, some of these names WILL be a hindrance. You don’t give a shild an advantage by naming him, you give a child and advantage by caring for him, teaching him, nurturing and mentoring him.

Looking at statistics for poverty, a kid with a single mom and absent dad is many times more likely to end up below the poverty line and in jail. What should be “mainstream” are the characteristics necessary to ensure a useful and productive life. Oh, yes, dear reader, there ARE cases where people lived as children of single moms and overcame the odds to become successful, but as the saying goes, that’s not the safe bet.

And I just want to see the look of resignation on the face of the teacher who has little TyraYhanni in her class. Hell, I’d bet a paycheck that her MOM can’t spell that whole name the same way TWICE in a row.

Unique? I got your “unique” right here…

General, Pets

Pure evil…

5 Comments

Browsing through the blogs, I read a post from The Daily Brief by Radar about raccoons.

I have raccoon experience.

Back a bunch of years ago when I was still married to wife #1, the forces that be were clearing land for a developement. In doing so, they were bulldozing a lot of scrub and small trees, and my son and his friend found a nest of very young raccoons in a pile of debris piled for burning. They brought the babies home. We became foster parents of three tiny little babies, so young their eyes were still closed.

Wife #1 might have been a lot of things, but she had a mothering instinct beyond reproach. She undertook to raise the little ones. Apparently the stress was too much for one, but two of the three grew rapidly, eyes opened, they got to moving around, and we were now the parents of perhaps the cutest babies in the animal universe, baby raccoons.

Everybody loved them, except the cat. The cat took on the air of “you’ll see. This is NOT a good thing.”

We kept them in a big box for a while, removing them almost constantly for cuddling and attention. They competed with the cat for food, and they used the kitty’s litter box. And they were SOOOOOOO cute!

And destructive.

Leave the house with two cats inside, you return to find two cats lounging around on the sofa. Leave the house with two adolescent raccoons, and you return to a effect reminiscent of a small tornado. Raccoons are curious.

They got on the kitchen cabinet. We had four canisters there: flour, sugar, coffee and tea. The lids were off all four canisters. There was a single floury footprint. There was a single coffee footprint. There was a single torn teabag. And the sugar canister was empty. We had two young coons on a sugar jag. They’d apparently licked their paws, stuck them in the sugar, pulled paw out, licked the sugar off, and repeated until all the sugar was gone.

Wife cleaned up the mess, and we got out a more secure set of canisters. The next trip, we returned to the same two coons on a sugar jag, execept this time they were smirking, proud of passing the little raccoon IQ test.

We got a big cage, five feet high, five feet wide, and three feet thick. It had a human representation of raccoon paradise: a box to nest in, some tree limbs to climb and lounge on, food, water, a litter box. You’d have thought we’d sentenced them to Devil’s Island instead of a roomy cage in our living room. Every time somebody walked into the room, both little raccoons climbed up the side of the cage and extended their little arms and made little whimpery raccoon noises, begging to be held.

It was hard to turn such a request down. So you open the cage and withdraw two loving little raccoons. They snuggle, cradled in your arms while you give them the requisite belly skritches. They do that little coon chittering noise. You’re thinking, “Awwww, how aDOREable…” and then the little bastards jump down and run off for mischief, leaving you feeling badly used.

Raccoons like dens, too. We returned from one trip. The kitchen looked normal. We thought we’d reached milestone in human-raccoon relations. Then the wife went to her closet. That’s where the “babies” had decided to den up. Both the shelves in her closet were cleaned off, the contents pushed off the shelves and laying in disarray on the closet floor. And on each shelf was a happily sleeping raccoon.

Ultimately we gave both of them away. The last time I saw one, he was the companion pet of the kid acrass that street, and was probably the biggest raccoon I’d ever seen, result of having never missed a meal in his whole raccoon life…

General, Humor

Let’s not start THIS again!

6 Comments

You might be a redneck if……..

(Posted By: John F. Sukey on CSP Gun Talk‘s Political Page)

Your neighbors chip in to buy you a new muffler

You are driving the car you were conceived in

You refer to heaven as the big outlet mall in the sky.

You broke even at your last yard sale.

Your tool shed has four flats and is missing a transmission.

You had your trailer bricked in.

Your best china traces the career of Loretta Lynn.

You’ve ever captained a pontoon boat naked.

All your favourite music came from the checkout counter at a truck stop.

Your wedding reception featured an above-ground pool.

You got your wife’s wedding ring at a buy one, get one free sale.

Current events - global, Current events - national, General

Flight 93: The movie (Updated)

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I don’t know that I want to see this one. I know what heroes are. Apparently there were some on that plane.

Is it too soon for this movie? That’s not the question. The question as far as I’m concerned is if I want to fan a burning flame to white heat again.

In the days after the 9/11/01 attack, I wanted to hurt the enemies of my country. Not KILL them, hurt them, and leave them to die horribly painful deaths or to spend the remainders of their miserable lives crawling around with maimed and tortured and useless limbs.

I was a soldier. I would (then AND now) happily put myself back in a tank turret to go after the enemies of my country and our way of life. I am no slouch as a shooter and a hunter. I would happily put myself out in the field hunting those who would glorify the ideology which killed three thousand of my fellow citizens for the crime of showing up for work.

This isn’t NOW the heat of the moment. It’s plain, premeditated feelings.

I’d do my part. Those people on Flight 93 did theirs.

(VariFrank does it from another angle.)

Current events - global, General

Zimbabwe, revisited…

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When I was a kid, it was Rhodesia, and it was like Africa’s breadbasket. But that was with those horrible vestiges of British colonial government in place: white people. The African population KNEW they shouldn’t be ruled by white people, and guerrilla warfare by more than one group was established. The legitimate government moved towards reform, but not nearly fast enough for the opposition groups. The opposition groups were the darlings of the liberal world. Rhodesia suffered under the censure of the world, and eventually buckled. Elections were held, and Robert Mugabe was elected president.

That was 1980. He’s still president. Zimbabwe WAS a democracy. In agreements, white Zimbabweans were to retain 20 seats in the parliament. That agreement was revoked in 1988. The country has since descended into a thugocracy, complete with a “president for life”. Under the euphemism of “land reform”, white farmers have been driven off thier lands and the farms turned over to Mugabe’s cronies. Needless to say, this was not conducive to good crop yields. Zimbabwe shivers on the edge of famine.

Mugabe has extended similar management expertise to other arenas of public life. Inflation in Zimbabwe has run in the hundreds of percent per year for the last several years. Financial mishandling is so bad that the IMF (interational Monetary Fund) has dropped Zimbabwe’s membership.

The country is a wreck. Here’s a recent developement:

Huge hike in Zimbabwe health fees

Zimbabwe has announced a huge increase in the cost of health care at public hospitals, as it grapples with the world’s highest inflation rate.

Public hospitals fees have gone up from Z$300 to between Z$800,000 and Z$1m (US$10) with immediate effect, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported.

The costs of consultations, maternity services, surgery and intensive care are also increasing.

The government says the rises will help pay for improved care.

The 333,200% increases come a month after the government lifted a freeze on private health care charges, which have since doubled.

So you ask WHY a 333,200% increase?

Correspondents say the old fees of Z$300 were no longer practical, as $100 notes have become virtually worthless and disappeared from circulation.

Deputy Health Minister Dr Edwin Muguti told The Herald that people were going to hospitals if they had colds because the fees were so low.

…

Oh, come on… You mean they have to PAY? Visit the emergency room of a hospital in this town after hours. You’ll see more than one case of the sniffles in there because the hospital can’t refuse care to our “poor” at all.

But I digress. They had to raise the prices in Zimbabwe because the paper money used to pay the old fee was so worthless nobody carried it around any more…

The health sector has been hit hard by Zimbabwe’s deepening economic crisis.

Conditions have deteriorated with drugs and trained staff in short supply.

The doctors and nurses who have not gone to work abroad have staged a number of strikes over the past few years.

Zimbabwe has the highest annual rate of inflation in the world at more than 900%, and the lowest life expectancy, at less than 40.

But you have to admit, at least they ain’t being ruled over by those white people…

Go talk to Kim du Toit. He’s watching the same thing coming down the road in his homeland, South Africa…

Correspondents say poverty, because of the crumbling economy, and deaths from Aids are responsible for the decline.

It also faces shortages of foreign currency, food and fuel as well as irregular water and electricity supplies.

President Robert Mugabe blames Zimbabwe’s woes on opponents who he says have sabotaged the country over his land reform policy when white-owned farms were seized.

Aid workers estimate some 3m people, mostly in rural areas, need food assistance this year.

Like I said, Zimbabwe USED to EXPORT food, when it was Rhodesia…

Ox-drawn ambulances have been introduced in rural areas in recent years, in what the opposition alleges is a sign that President Mugabe is taking Zimbabwe back to the stone ages.

“Ox-drawn ambulances… back to the stone ages.” Ya think?

Battle of the Sexes, General, Wheels of Industry

Wimmen in the workforce

1 Comment

Years ago when I was working as an electrician at one of the local petrochem facilities, on eof my fellow electricians was former employer of a telephone assembly plant. We were working on a project together one day and tlaking as the job went on. He intimated that at that facility, he worked around hundreds of female assembly line workers. I opined that such a situation would be paradise for a single man such as he. He countered that it was not so.

“Why?”, I asked.

“You ain’t ever SEEN a more vicious, backstabbin’, gossipin’ bunch of people in your life.” He continued, “If i said something nice to one of them, the others would pick her to bits. A woman might think she’s working alongside her best friends, but if she missed a day of work, while she was gone they’d talk about her like she was a dog…”

Old and Evil has a post that covers this subject pretty well. Of course, he doesn’t come by his blog’s name without showing qualification:

When the layoffs are all over I will have only male employees, because at this time they are the best qualified. When I start to hire again , I will use a different technique, I am hiring by cleavage and looks. If I have to put up with this female bullshit I might as well enjoy the scenery.

Current events - national, General, Politics

Rebuilding (or whatever) New Orleans

From Chad Rogers’ Dead Pelican comes this article about “public housing” in New Orleans from the New Orleans Times- Picayune:

Official blunt on public housing
He wants ‘only the best residents’ back
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson shed little light Monday on the future of public housing in hurricane-battered New Orleans, but said that “only the best residents” of the former St. Thomas housing complex should be allowed into the new mixed-income development that replaced it.

Now that’s just one of those hurtful Republican things to say. I mean, you’re saying that there are BAD residents of public housing? I thought ALL the residents of public housing were hard-working, honest, upstanding citizens who just happened to NOT win life’s lottery. They jus’ in there ‘cuz the man be keepin’ ’em down.

…

“Some of the people shouldn’t return,” Jackson said. “The (public housing) developments were gang-ridden by some of the most notorious gangs in this country. People hid and took care of those persons because they took care of them. Only the best residents should return. Those who paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked.”

That’s some more of that hate-speech. I mean, like, you’re saying that people who “paid rent on time, those who held a job and those who worked” are some how more valuable and deserving than people who sat on their butts doing drugs, procreating illegitimate children and stealing.

The blunt-spoken Jackson, who is black, acknowledged his comments might be seen as racially offensive because virtually all of the former St. Thomas residents were African-American. He told a white reporter, “If you said this, they would say you were racist.”

He went on to say, “I don’t care what color they are, if they are devastating a community, they shouldn’t be allowed to return.”

Okaaaaay then. Where should these paragons of society BE? Prison? Houston? San Antonio? I am willing to wait for the answer to that question.

His comments drew a sharp response from housing advocates in New Orleans who have accused Jackson’s agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, of giving public housing residents short shrift as it replaces traditional public developments such as St. Thomas with planned, mixed-income communities.

“I find that very disappointing,” said Lucia Blacksher, general counsel for the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Center. “When people say things like we only want the best people who don’t do drugs or commit crimes, there is an implication that many of the people in public housing are in fact criminals who don’t work. That simply is not true. It is an unnecessary stereotype and an alarming stereotype to be voiced by the secretary of HUD.”

Now THIS is a pointy-headed bureaucrat of the Old School. If there’s high crime and unemployment in public housing areas, it simply CANNOT be the people she put in there. Nope. Gotta be truckloads of invading Klansmen or something. Or the CIA in there selling crack cocaine and 40-ounce malt liquor. And her people are FULLY employed. And in school. That’s why the place is almost always deserted if you bravely drive through at noon on a weekday…

Just go read the whole thing…

Current events - national, General, Local politics, Politics

New Orleans Voters Speak

4 Comments

And the message is:

We want the same bozos running our city, but with MORE federal money!

Here are the election stats:

Ray Nagin (I) 41,489 38%
Mitch Landrieu 31,499 29%
Ron Forman 18,734 17%
Robert Couhig 10,287 10%
Virginia Boulet 2,367 2%
Tom Watson 1,264 1%
Peggy Wilson 772 1%

In the convoluted world of Louisiana’s open primary system, here’s what’s happening: since no candidate in the bunch got a pure majority of the votes, the top TWO vote-getters will engage in a run-off election.

This pits Mayor Ray “Where’s mah friggin’ buses” Nagin against Mitch Landrieu, brother of our senior senatrix “Hurricane Mary” Landrieu and son of a former New Orleans mayor, Moon Landrieu. In this selection, I am hoping for a “none of the above” slot on the ballot.

BOTH of these guys are status quo: Nagin for being arguably the dumbest possible spokesman in the midst of disaster, Landrieu for being closely connected with the decades of graft that made New Orleans politics the most corrupt in a state that tops the nation in corruption. Neither of these guys is going to give the rest of the country the warm fuzzy feeling that federal dollars will be properly used in New Orleans. That is, unless your definition of “proper use” includes “$100,000 for you, $100,000 for me, and $500 to paint the old levee so it looks like it’s been worked on…”

Current events - national, General, Politics

Wait! You ain’t finished wit’ mah free ride!

11 Comments

From a link on Chad Rogers’ “Dead Pelican” comes this article.

NAACP: Rights violated at park

Cessation of meal services, propane delivery spurs charges

By SONYA KIMBRELL
Advocate staff writer
Published: Apr 22, 2006

The NAACP collected affidavits Friday from residents at the FEMA Renaisssance Village in Baker that contain complaints alleging lack of services, harassment and intimidation.

Kwame Asanté, director of the Louisiana chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said NAACP representatives have been going to the village council meetings.

“There are a lot of people who feel that their rights have been violated,� Asanté said Friday afternoon.

Oh, HELL yeah! these people MAKE A LIVING out of feeling that their rights have been violated. “Lack of services”? Read on.

About 1,650 hurricane evacuees have been living at the 572-unit trailer park on Groom Road since it opened in October. Most residents signed an agreement that would allow them to live in the park for 18 months.

Initially, FEMA provided three meals daily in a communal kitchen and paid for the propane that is necessary to run the trailers.
The trailers have electric lights but propane is used for bathing, cooking, refrigeration and heat. FEMA stopped providing propane in February and ended the meal service two weeks ago.

Let me explain something to you as the resident blogosphere expert on FEMA trailers ( **I** live in one for the time being…): When you get one, it comes with pots and pans. Now allow me a little point on home economics: For the same money as a pack of cigarettes, you can feed a family of four a decent meal if you actually USE those pots and pans to cook it instead of sending them to a fast food joint while you sit on your lazy ass.

I’ve been on the same propane jug for several weeks since the weather warmed up. That, incidentally, coincided with the end of February. During the coldest periods of the winter, I used a bottle a week. That bottle costs twenty bucks and change to fill up. so we’re talking about the SAME money I WAS paying last year to heat my house. Twenty bucks for a MONTH! Oh, sorry! That’s twenty bucks of MY money that I can’t spend on cigarettes and liquor. ( I don’t smoke, and I still have half the six-pack I bought last month in the fridge.)

But since the government is providing free meals, you can use your money to buy cigarettes and liquor, and then bitch when somebody acts like your gravy train may be ending its run.

continuing:

Transportation is an issue for many residents, especially older ones, who don’t have vehicles.

“Many of these people lived in communities (before Katrina) where they didn’t need a vehicle. We’d just like to see the government change the way we address these situations,� Asanté said.

Me too! I’d like to see the government walk in and tell the freeloaders that there’s a duty roster posted at the front gate, and the new law is that if you don’t work, you don’t eat, and rakes and brooms are available to get the place squared away.

According to a news release from the NAACP, James Ross, president of the village council, said the residents’ complaints center on the promise from FEMA that they would receive 18 months of assistance with meals and propane.

Only eighteen months? a lot of this bunch has been receiving “assistance” for a few generations.
And “assistance” is a misnomer. That word implies that you’re TRYING to do things yourself.

Ross and other residents also have complained that FEMA representatives have been asking residents for proof that they are looking for employment and seeking other places to live.

“This is leading them to believe that they are going to be asked to leave,� Asanté said.

Nope! Standard FEMA procedure. I’ve had that same visit. “FEMA said you were getting a trailer for no longer than eighteen months. How’re things going? You still using it? How’s your progress on getting PERMANENT housing?”

I’m telling you, I felt SOOOOO threatened I almost wet myself. (/sarcasm)

However, there’s a difference. I plan on being out of here. The government teat is NOT my lifestyle. I **AM** grateful, the housing market around here following Rita was past saturation. It’s getting better now. I won’t be here much longer. These folks on the other hand plan on a whole new vista of “free ride”.

Asanté said the NAACP collected the affidavits of complaints from about 50 residents, and they plan to submit them to FEMA representatives.

“Also, we’re keeping copies so that we can collect data to track the kinds of complaints for possible legal action down the road,� he said.

Oh yeah. “possible legal action” And the sun will possibly rise tomorrow in the east.

So that’s the story: You ain’t helpin’ us ENOUGH! We ain’t grateful, we’re MAD!

It is no small wonder that America is taking a look at the welfare mentality in a whole new light…

General

Earth Day!

4 Comments

Hug a tree! Kiss a whale on the lips! It’s Earth Day!

All over the world, people who take no effort to have an original thought will gather together FOR THE PLANET.

Some of these will be basically “normal” people who simply have been deluded into believing alarmist crap and whose main contribution to “saving the planet” consists of being happy that McDonalds stopped using styrofoam to package the Big Mac.

Others are the classic “patchouli-smelling hippy” types.

Some are guys who show up at these things because rumor has it “hippy chicks are easy…”

Me, I’m going to celebrate by driving a huge SUV around, burning non-renewable energy, adding to the CO2 problem.

Happy Earth Day, y’all!

Cajun culture, General, Recipes and Food

Sassafras tea

4 Comments

Don’t know what put the thought in my head, but I remember knowing as a kid that sassafras tea was a spring tonic. Seems like somebody always knew where a sassafras tree could be found. A little shallow grubbing in the soil at the base of the tree would turn up a handful of small (1/8-1/4″ thick) roots. These were washed to remove dirt, and then steeped in boiling water to produce an exotically fragant tea. A steaming cup with a little cream and sugar, and you DID feel an effect. I don’t know if it was really effective as a tonic, but it was a might fine treat as a cup of tea.

Of course, there was a second reason to keep track of the location of that sassafras tree. The fully-grown leaves were harvested, dried, and ground to a fine powder. This is file’, pronounced “fee-lay”. It is a Cajun spice used to thicken “file’ gumbo”. you see, gumbo comes in two varieties: one uses okra to thicken, the other uses a roux (pronounced “roo”) of browned flour and the addition of file’. File’ is never added to the cooking gumbo. This mistake will leave you with a pot of something that will not necessarily taste bad, but it will be unappetizingly ropey, like a pot of snot. Instead, a shaker bottle of file’ is placed conveniently so each diner can shake a little on a freshly served bowl of hot gumbo.

General, History

Coincidence?

1 Comment

I thought it odd that I should pen a post on the illegal immigration thing the DAY before the anniversary of The Battle of San Jacinto.

On this day in 1836, Texans led by General Sam Houston defeated the Mexican force under General Santa Ana, decisively and brutally. The Texans shouted “Remember the Alamo” and “Remember Goliad” and proceeded to avenge the slaughter of their countrymen. Losses to the Texan force of 910 men were nine killed and thirty wounded, among them General Sam Houston who suffered a shot to his ankle. The Mexican army lost 630 killed, 208 wounded, 730 captured out of a force of 1200. Among the captives was General Santa Ana himself.

The fallout for this battle was immediately the independence of Texas, but a short trip down history’s road, and the result was the acquisition of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Driving down Interstate 10, you can see the San Jacinto Monument from the highway…

Only the future knows if there will be a Second Battle of San Jacinto…