My Daughter’s Interview with the First Lady

At 11 years old, my daughter Sarah is like most fifth graders. She doesn’t know exactly what she wants to be when she grows up.

But today, she got a unique first-hand experience doing what her dad does.

She got to play “reporter” and interview First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna about their new book for children, “Read All About It.”

The idea was my boss’s. The book is for kids, so why not have a kid do the interview?

Somehow, they picked Sarah, and she couldn’t have been more excited.

The Bushes were very gracious and answered all her questions. Even her tough one — “Have you ever been rejected for a book deal?” (Jenna answered that she has only written two books. Mrs. Bush said this was the only book she has written.)

When we got home, my wife and Sarah’s twin brother Matthew were up watching. Matthew said he thought Sarah did a great job but that the ending of the story was “a little cheesy!”

After the interview, both Jenna and Mrs. Bush said Sarah did a great job. On her way out, Mrs. Bush told me I must be proud of my daughter.

She was right.

Click here to watch video of the story.

Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?

A startling new study is out about the number of Americans in prison: Far more than any other country (including China, which has four times the number of people.)

And Americans spend far longer behind bars.

Consider the following facts:

–The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but nearly a quarter of its prisoners.

–For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 Americans is locked up. (Exact number is one in every 99.1.)  Among men ages 20-34, the odds are one in 30. And among African-American men in that same age group, it’s one in nine!

–Texas has more prisoners than any other state.

For the record, 2,319,258 Americans are locked up.

It got me thinking.

Don’t get me wrong. Obviously if someone commits a serious crime or is a danger to society, they need to be behind bars for a long, long time. As a reporter, I’ve covered my share of horrific crime stories.

But why are these numbers so high? Are we locking up too many people for too long, perhaps for the wrong reasons?

Are Americans really that much more likely to be criminals than Russians or Germans or Chinese? Is this a record we should be proud of?

Something seems broken somewhere.

Behind the Scenes: Covering the Bees

 

We reporters often think we’re invincible, covering everything from wars to hurricanes.

We’re made of teflon while we report the news. At least we like to think so.

Photographer Juan Rodriguez (that’s him running for his life) and I had an interesting assignment today.

The kids at Hurst Hills Elementary have gone to school next to a huge beehive for years. It was out in a tree in the field behind the school.

Well, last week’s storms split the tree in half, exposing the bees’ home. An estimated 20,000 bees!

The kids didn’t want to get stung, but they didn’t want the bees killed either. So a fifth-grade class arranged for a beekeeper to come out and move the bees outside the city. (He vacuumed them into a padded box.)

Cool story.  Well, here’s the story behind the story.

The beekeeper offered Juan a protective suit.  Juan, being the tough guy that he is, declined.  (We had covered bee stories before and never had much of a problem.)

This time was different. 

The bees started swarming! We beat a retreat, but the bees kept following!

Juan ended up getting stung once on the head.

A colleague of mine from another station got it the worst. He got stung three times: Once near his left eye, once near his left ear, and once on his neck.

And me? I managed to stay just far enough back to avoid getting stung at all.

Juan says he’ll take up the offer on the protective suit next time.

Mother of Triplets Enjoys String of Threes

As the father of 11-year-old twins, I could relate to the story we did yesterday on a mother of new triplets.

Often on sleepless nights when my twins were little, I would tell myself ”we could have had triplets!”

Well, Nicole and Johnathon Madison of Haslet had triplets, but that is not what makes their story so unique.

Consider the rash of “threes” that came with their births last Friday at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth.

–Nicole’s water broke at 3 am.

–The triplets were born the same day as their sister’s 3-year-old birthday.

–The triplets were born at 33 weeks.

–Nicole and Johnathon are about to turn 33.

They say the odds of natural-born triplets (Nicole took no fertility drugs) are about 1 in 8000. What do you think the odds of all those other “threes” are?

The Madisons have a beautiful family (that has just doubled in size) and I wish them the best.

Gridlock: DFW Number One

Ever think you’re spending more and more time stuck in traffic?

Well, a story I’m working on for the news tonight confirms your worst traffic fears!

A study by the Texas Transportation Institute shows D-FW is number one on the list of fastest-growing congestion.

The average commuter now spends 58 hours a year stuck in traffic, compared to just 10 hours back in 1982.

That’s an extra thousand bucks a year in wasted gas!

I didn’t get into this in the story, but we really need to invest in mass transportation. And Arlington, the third largest city in the metroplex, needs to come up with some kind of mass transit. (It’s the biggest city in the country without a mass transit system, not even public buses.)

Congressional Leader Claims FAA Officials Gave Inaccurate Testimony

New fallout from last week’s congressional hearing into airline safety and the FAA’s oversight role, which I covered in Washington. The following is a press release just sent out by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee:

WASHINGTON—The Chairman and two Subcommittee Chairmen of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure have charged three government officials with presenting “inaccurate and misleading” statements to the Committee during an April 3 hearing.

A Replacement for the Internet?

Just read a really interesting article on the website of the Times of London, of all places… about something called “The Grid” that may one day replace the Internet.

It’s 10,000 times faster than a regular broadband connection.

Check it out.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3689881.ece

 

Southwest Airlines Defends Safety Record; FAA Under Fire

Southwest’s Herb Kelleher: “We Screwed Up”

While declaring Southwest has “the best airline passenger safety record in the world,” Southwest Chairman Herb Kelleher admitted employees “screwed up” by not immediately performing mandatory inspections into small cracks in the fuselage.

Testifying before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Kelleher stressed the lapse involved a “tiny part” of the plane and that Southwest discovered the mistake itself.

“We reported it to the FAA. We told them what was going on,” Kelleher said.”The FAA said we could continue to fly the plane while we inspected that small portion. And we did, and we should not have, and we have learned our lesson.”

Strong Words from Committee Chair