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Katy Trail
Feb. 21 - 27, 2020
Weekly
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Vol. 7, No. 2: Section Two | Sports | Automotive | Entertainment | Travel | Health and Fitness | katytrailweekly.com
AUTOMOBILITY
Mustang GT Convertible drives 55
By David Boldt boldface2020@gmail.com
everything you’d want from the muscle car experience. You can’t really call it refined, but then, that’s not why you’re here. With the pedal to the metal, the response is as immediate as you’d want (you can dial up Normal, Sport or Track), while the chassis does a reasonable job of disguising, if not exactly minimizing, the GT’s curb weight. In football parlance, think of it as a reasonably agile linebacker or tight end, not Richard Sherman or Odell Beckham. On the highways and byways of Los Angeles where this was driven, a Mustang convertible establishes a strong connection to the scenery, given the area’s 300 (or so) days of perfect weather each year. In other climes it won’t work as well. If living in one of those, I think I’d opt for the coupe. With all of that, after 55 years, it might be time for Ford to expand the Mustang template. With the addition of the all-electric Mustang Mach E, I’ll suggest a four-door take on today’s gas-driven 2-door, something to slot against Dodge’s Charger, which serves in the FCA lineup as a stablemate to the 2-door Challenger. A four-door Mustang would make the platform’s larger footprint easier to rationalize, while costing less to insure. And it’s not too much of a stretch to think Ford could double its annual Mustang sales with this relatively modest investment. As it sits, I’m gonna’ go big, budgeting roughly $65K for Shelby’s GT350. Or I’d go small, finding it almost too easy to love a $30K Mustang with four boosted cylinders and Ford’s performance pack. The GT convertible sits smack in the middle, and for its $50K price point, you just gotta’ like the middle. David Boldt brings years of experience in automotive retail sales and public relations to his automotive reporting. More can be found at txGarage.com.
As its dash plaque tells you, 2020 is the 55th year of Mustang production. Introduced at the New York City World’s Fair in the spring of 1964, Ford’s Mustang was an automotive homerun. Compared to Ford’s more pedestrian Falcon, which donated many of its underpinnings, it was the Beatles vs. the Beach Boys, as much as I personally enjoyed "Surf City," to a budding car enthusiast it couldn’t compare to the Mersey beat or Motown. Fifty-five years later, Ford’s Mustang marches on with fully independent suspension, an available 460 horsepower V8 and, in GT convertible guise, a $50K window sticker. And while the appeal of the Mustang isn’t as broad-based (or volume-oriented) as it was in ’65, the appeal remains real and every bit as visceral. At my Cars and Coffee (a community of car enthusiasts), there’s a newish base Mustang that’s regularly displayed. At around $30K with its 2.3-liter EcoBoost hooked to a manual trans, it has undeniable appeal for those looking for accessible performance and a new car warranty. And while boasting, (if that’s the word), a larger footprint than Mazda’s Miata or Subaru’s BR-Z, there’s a lot to like in the fun formula provided by Ford. At the other end of the Mustang spectrum is the GT, if (of course) you forget about those pony cars from Shelby American. In coupe guise, a V8-equipped GT is one real piece of muscle. And the muscle descriptive is apt, as the pony car of today could more accurately be described as a muscle car. All three — Mustang, Camaro and Challenger — offer footprints more in line with the GTOs, Fairlanes and Chevelles of the ’60s than those that began the pony car phenomenon. With the styling revisions of the current Mustang, you have a hood that seemingly goes on forever, along with a generous trunk that can accommodate real luggage. In between are passenger accommodations which remain comfortable for two and tight for four. Even if the convertible top is retracted, headroom won’t be an issue. Behind the wheel, The Ford Mustang Convertible. the Mustang GT is
ford
MULL IT OVER
Book examines army career of baseball legend
By David Mullen david@katytrailweekly.com Why would someone write a book on the military court-martial of baseball, the great Jackie Robinson, when it has been an often-told story that was even the subject of a movie? “Very bluntly, it had not been told correctly,” said author Michael Lee Lanning. “Like most about African American history, it comes from two aspects. People think that it is the most wonderful thing with lots of heroes or it is written from a prejudicial standpoint where [the event] doesn't deserve what it has and is all played up. Somewhere in-between is the truth.” Lanning is 73 and was born in Sweetwater. He goes by Lee. “I've always gone by Lee,” Lanning said. “I couldn't spell Michael until I was in high school.” He has written more than 20 books on various aspects of military service and combat. He is a decorated soldier who served in Vietnam, earning 16 medals and badges including the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor and the Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters. His latest book, the newly-released The court-martial of Jackie Robinson: the baseball legend's battle for civil rights during World War II, is a thoroughly researched tome dedicated to addressing previous misrepresentations of the 1944 military trial. Nearly one-third of the book is dedicated to appendices and footnotes. No official record of the Robinson court-martial exists in National or military archives. “When I read the other books,” Lanning said, “no one had military experience. So, I knew I could put it into perspective. I had been stationed at Fort Hood [in Killeen], grew up in Texas and understood the racial climate at the time. I knew how Fort Hood worked. You can't judge what went on in 1944 by 2020 standards.” Attached to the all-black 761st Tank Battalion, Robinson was assigned to Camp (now Fort) Hood. He was slated to fight overseas under the command of Gen. George Patton. “No one had made the key of how important that the court-martial was as a very important aspect of Jackie's future,” Lanning said. “Had he not been court-martialed, he would have been transferred to Europe with the black tank battalion that took 70 percent of its officers to casualties. He may not have survived the war. If he had, he may have been wounded and not be able to play ball or would have been delayed further in the major leagues. Someone else would have broken the color barrier.” Robinson integrated baseball in 1947 when he became the first black major league player as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Because of his leadership abilities coupled with three years of study at UCLA, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. In 1940, about one percent
of the U.S. Army were African Americans and black officers were scarce. Everyone is familiar with the prejudice Robinson faced in the big leagues, but few are aware of his obstacles in the military. Even before baseball, Robinson was a champion in fighting for racial equality. Eleven years before the event that Rosa Parks is noted for, Robinson refused to move to the back of a military bus when a racist bus driver demanded that he do so. And that refusal led to an Army court-martial proceeding. “It just didn't get the publicity and the country wasn't ready for it,” Lanning said. “It is almost identical to STACKPOLE BOOKS the Rosa Parks story. Jackie was the character that led the way. Texas buses were segregated, but military buses were not. The story should have been more significant, but there was a war going on.” Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, famously chose Robinson as the first player to integrate the game. Rickey, acknowledging that his player would face relentless prejudice, was quoted that he was “looking for a fighter with guts enough not to fight back.” Lanning put it another way. “Rickey spent an enormous amount of money to find out everything they could about him [Robinson],” Lanning said. “He would send three different scouts to the same baseball game that didn't know each other or were unaware that the other was there to get different reports on how he conducted himself in the minor leagues. “But because of the court-martial proceedings, Rickey learned that he [Robinson] could stand up and use the correct procedures and process to prove that he was right. I think it was one of the biggest factors in Rickey's decision. Other than that, he was hugely talented, well-spoken and educated to go with it.” Robinson went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Dodgers. His number 42 has been retired by every major league baseball team. “He was the second most popular person in America in 1950 behind Bing Crosby,” Lanning recalled. “More popular then Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur and Bob Hope.” Lanning and his author wife Linda met in Fisher Country and have been married “50-something years.” He is on a strict raw vegan, no sugar and no gluten diet as he battles kidney cancer. He lives in Lampasas so he can be closer to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “Sugar breeds cancer,” Lanning said. “I have lived about 12 years longer than they ever thought I would.” “I wrote the book,” Lanning said, “so that the reader could make up their own mind. It was too good of a story not to be told.” And like Lee Lanning, the story of the court-martial of Jackie Robinson lives on.
ENVIRONMENT
Smart cities emerging from pilot programs By David Kirkpatrick The “smart city” concept has become a fixture of forward-looking media coverage and is gaining traction with many cities around the globe initiating smart city projects. Technology is the foundation of smart cities. In practice, this means information and communication tech such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices are deployed to collect data that is in turn utilized to optimize and improve assets and services and manage resources including urban transportation, utilities, crime detection and community services. Smart cities currently take many forms from pilot programs such as Dallas’ Smart City Living Lab program, which focused on a specific neighborhood in downtown Dallas with an array of IoT devices including environmental quality sensors to the extremely ambitious like Toyota’s Woven City “city of the future” prototype. Situated at the base of
Mt. Fuji in Japan, it is a fully connected ecosystem based on hydrogen fuel cell power and featuring zero-emission autonomous vehicles, in-home robotics and fully sustainable buildings. Adelphi, a Berlin-based think tank and public policy consultancy on climate, environment and development, sees smart cities as key to a sustainable future. The group points to projections on urban population growth from around 4 billion right now to 6.5 billion in 2050 and describes this growth along with urban infrastructure growth coupled with the ongoing digitalization in the modern world as an opportunity to increase urban efficiency and meet the dual challenges of growing urban infrastructure and sustainably using resources. To achieve this, information and communications technologies can network physical and digital infrastructures. Many aspects of the smart city concept are forward-looking and will require large-scale adoption for many
of the most grandiose claims to become fully realized. But, many of the technological backbone pieces are already in place. There are expected to be 25 billion IoT devices of all types deployed worldwide by next year and that number is increasing exponentially. It’s not typically covered in the hype around 5G mobile, but one of the main differences between 5G and the wireless tech it is superseding is along with much faster speeds 5G allows for orders of magnitude more IoT devices to connect to the network. All of this means the technology infrastructure for smart cities is here — it’s just a matter of putting this technology into practice. Here are a few ways smart cities can make an environmental impact: Waste management. Intelligent garbage solutions can streamline trash collection saving both money and carbon dioxide emissions by only deploying collection trucks when needed. Pilot programs using smart garbage bins and potential for
EARTHx
smart waste management could be reducing the frequency of collections by as much as 80 percent. Traffic control. IoT sensors allow city managers to monitor traffic flow and patterns, noise levels, air quality and energy usage. Utilities and resources. Sensors will monitor energy and water usage to better identify areas of waste and opportunities to optimize usage across the city. The full “city of the future” experience may not be here right now, but parts of that vision can be found in urban areas around the world. The underlying technology for smart cities is in place and
improving every day. And while many visions of what smart cities will offer and can accomplish seem bold, the reality is the entire idea of a smart city is very much in its infancy. Who knows what the smart city future will bring? The prospect is certainly exciting. EarthX will host a Cities conference on Thursday, April 23 during its 10-day event. EarthxCities will focus on city, community and business leaders who are facing an increasing set of challenges as they prepare for the impacts of climate change and an increasing number of natural disasters. The conference will provide evolving practices,
cutting edge solutions and decision support needs. Scheduled speakers are Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and mayor of Mexico City, Sam Higuchi, greenhouse gases and climate risk management at NASA, Clarence Anthony, CEO and executive director of the National League of Cities, Jan Hartke, global director for clean energy at Clinton Foundation and Steve Adler, mayor of Austin. EarthX – Change Happens Here. EarthX is a Dallas based nonprofit whose mission is to connect a global community to create a sustainable world. Learn more at Earthx.org.
