(April 21, 2013) -- Every time the big mouth governor of Texas shows up in our state recruiting business to his God forsaken state I am reminded of his pitch. He always touts Texas as ‘business friendly’ and a place where government doesn’t tell business how to do business. Big government is bad and little, or in his case, no government is great. They don't need any governmental body telling them how to regulate their businesses or their environment. Texas has been and will continue to be a state that is run by the petro-chemical industry and that isn’t going to change in my lifetime, or in the lifetimes of many of you who will read this article.

I am wondering how the people of West, Texas are feeling today and have been feeling ever since the massive, and I do mean massive, explosion of last week. This explosion decimated about one-third of their town, killed at least 14 people (roughly 60 unaccounted for) and injured over 160, wiped out a school, an apartment complex, and a nursing home or senior citizen facility of some type. The mere fact that they were located in such close proximity to this facility should beg many questions.

I am not even sure that I want to get into the specifics of the first responders, many of who lost their lives in this incident, but I suspect that before they get done investigating this tragedy they will have some startling things to say about the abilities and capabilities of their ‘volunteer fire department’ and just how they approached and handled this event. Like I said, many of them lost their lives and that is truly tragic but what could be even more tragic is why and how they lost their lives.

Governor Perry touts the state's business friendly attitude and tells our companies to "come on down and set up shop" in the great State of Texas. Well as far as I, and many others for that matter, are concerned the great state is probably significantly responsible for this tragedy simply due to their absence of governmental oversight and their inability to adequately inspect and enforce rules, regulations, and laws that may or may not be on their books.

I know, from first-hand experience, that rules, regulations, and laws are of little good if they aren't enforced, and it takes government to do that. Business has proved, time and time and time again, that if you leave that responsibility to them they will take every shortcut possible and avoid every rule, regulation, and law that they can if they can get away with it. After all isn’t it all about the corporate bottom line? How much money and profit can we make?

Well, I have no idea about the profitability of the chemical company and the facility that blew up last week but all I know now is that it doesn’t exist anymore. Thousands of lives will be altered, some permanently and some temporarily. The community of West will have to re-build and only time will tell just how much the role of a lack of government oversight played in this tragedy. I know that they mind-set of many Southern politicians is that government is the enemy and that government is always the problem and not the solution. That is surely the mind-set of Governor Perry that’s for sure. I really have to wonder how the citizens of West, Texas are feeling today about small government and about the lack of government over-sight when it comes to safety regulations in businesses like this one.

This past week also included the horribly tragic events on Patriots' Day in Boston, Massachusetts. I, like so many others, sat riveted these past five days as the ensuing investigation moved forward, with astonishing speed I might add, and culminated with the death and then capture of what looks like the two perpetrators of this heinous crime. There will be many questions that need answering and I am confident that before the investigation is completed that we will have many of the answers necessary.

I was wrong in my first assessment of this event in that I was kind of convinced that this would end up being the work of some home grown, domestic, terrorists and not something influenced by terrorists or terrorist movements outside our country. It certainly looks like I was wrong in my first assumptions. While it could be argued that these two were "home grown" because they had both been here for the past ten years, it certainly appears as I write this article that there have been some outside influences that didn’t originate here in America that played a significant part in their terrorist acts of the past week.

At this point in the investigation it would appear that there is some controversy with respect to how the FBI is handling the investigation. I am not an expert in the laws that cover acts of terrorism and I find little fault with the route that the FBI is taking with respect to their investigation and eventual prosecution. I am also not bothered by the fact that the ACLU is asking questions about the issue of Miranda and other things. Frankly, even with my law enforcement background, I have never felt that the ACLU was the enemy of this country and I am very glad that we have an organization like the ACLU, which only exists to insure that the Constitution is abided by and that we play by rules that are fair to all.

I am interested, as are most Americans, in getting to the roots of this whole incident and finding out if there are others involved and getting answers to the questions that I know plague many in this country. Closure for many, especially those injured, killed, and affected by the incident on Patriot’s Day is very important and hopefully we will get those answers in short order.

Even with my law enforcement background I was amazed at how quickly law enforcement was able to come together and conduct their investigation. We truly do live in a much different world today than the one of just a decade ago. Electronic surveillance today is amazing and will prove to be a great deterrent in the future for those who would commit crimes of all types upon society.

Today [April 21] is the last day of the Long Beach Grand Prix. This is the pre-eminent event held each year in our city. It allows us to showcase to the world the best that Long Beach has to offer. The weather has been phenomenal for all three days of the event and I am sure that it will be the usual huge success that it has been for the past four decades.