Your Goat

Is In

My Seat

A Book By Mike McCarville

Chapter One

Guatemala City's airport baked in the morning sun as we clamored aboard a doorless, ancient, twin-engined airplane for a flight to Tikal, in the northern rain forest not far from Belize.

Natives of all kinds also got aboard, some of them carrying chickens in flimsy crates, others leading small goats by ropes tied around their necks.

The six of us in our group of journalists tried to find seats together. Father Elmo Romagoso of New Orleans, one of two Catholic priests in the group, motioned me to a seat and I sat down on it; notice I wrote sat down on it, not sat in it. That's because there wasn't much to the seat. Just a flimsy, well-worn place to park my butt for the flight. After I sat, I noticed a woman struggling to get aboard. I got up and went over to help her. When I returned to "my" seat, there was a goat in it, his owned seated next to it.

"Uh, your goat is in my seat," I said.

I got a blank look and a shrug from the goat's owner.

I found another seat.

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NEW SITE

The McCarville Report has moved; the new address is www.mccarvillereport.com.

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New TMR Site Coming January 1st

The McCarville Report's new Internet site, designed to be more user-friendly, debuts on January 1st at www.mccarvillereport.com.

Mike McCarville said he understands the new site "may take a bit of getting-used-to; on this site, readers have had to scroll down, down, down, to read the stories. The new site spreads stories across the page and categorizes them. For example, if you just want to read stories about Social Mores, you'd just scroll down to that category and click on the headline; all of our stories in that category will appear. If you're interested in state finance and the tax structure, no need to scroll much at all; the category State Spending is just below the animated photos.

"You will find some stories appear under General news at top right, and also under specific categories down the page; they are the same stories, categorized as they are for archive purposes once they are topped by other stories.

"And speaking of archives: At the bottom of the page, you'll find an Archive Search section.

"If you want to see a list of all current stories, just scroll a wee bit and look on the left; you'll see Top Of Our News.

"Note also the reinstatement of a Comments section under each story. So long as the comments do not use indelicate language, make an unfounded allegation or cast a personal aspersion, they will be used; if they stray, they won't be."

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Drug Cartels Target Young People

Mexican drug cartels, in a disturbing new trend, are luring young people from Southern California to smuggle drugs across the border and carry out other illicit work for the criminal enterprises, according to law enforcement officials and youth activists.

The result: More than 5,000 young people, most of them Latinos, have been held in San Diego County jails over the last two years, according to KPBS San Diego.

Many of the young people were involved in street gangs, making them easier to recruit, and the crimes that landed them behind bars included assaults, robbery, drug trafficking or consumption. Their proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border made it easier for them to fall prey to the advances of the Mexican drug cartels.

Many times, children as young as 11 years old, who are referred to as the "The expendables," according to The National Post, are recruited to smuggle drugs across the border because it is believed they'll attract less law enforcement attention than adults.

Children can earn up to $400 per trip smuggling drugs across the border, according to Pedro Ríos, an activist with the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee. He added that young people also are recruited by human traffickers to escort undocumented immigrants from the border to safe houses.

A report by the The Children's Rights Network in Mexico estimates that 30,000 Mexicans under the age of 18 are in the employ of Mexico's numerous drug cartels.

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Magic: Thunder Wins No. 4

Thunder downs Dallas on Kevin Durant's buzzer-beater 3-point shot.

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Romney? Paul? Santorum? Iowa Caucus Results Likely To Propel Someone To GOP Nomination

Twenty-five percent of people questioned say if the Iowa caucuses were held today, they'd most likely back Mitt Romney, with 22% saying they'd support Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Romney's three point margin is within the poll's sampling error.

The poll's Wednesday release comes six days before Iowa's January 3 caucuses, which kickoff the presidential primary and caucus calendar. The Iowa caucuses are followed one week later by the New Hampshire primary.

A new CNN/Time/ORC poll of likely primary voters in New Hampshire indicates that Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, remains the front-runner, far ahead of his rivals for the GOP nomination.

In Iowa, both Romney and Paul are each up five points among likely caucus goers from a CNN/Time/ORC poll conducted at the start of December. The new survey indicates that Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, is at 16% support, up 11 points from the beginning of the month, with Gingrich at 14%, down from 33% in the previous poll. Since Gingrich's rise late last month and early this month in both national and early voting state surveys, he's come under attack by many of the rival campaigns.

According to the survey, 11% are backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 9% are supporting Rep Michele Bachmann, and 1% are backing former Utah Gov. and former ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who's spending nearly all his time campaigning in New Hampshire.

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TMR Redesign Debuts On January 1st

On January 1st, the "new" design of The McCarville Report makes its debut.

The new design allows more news, categorized by interest, and allows much easier reading. The site eliminates the need to constantly scroll to read stories. It does require some scrolling, but not near as much,

We've dropped the "Online" portion of the title; almost six years ago, we used it to let readers know we had made the switch from print to electronic. By now, that's obvious.

The new site is light years ahead of this version in the use of graphics.

Like many readers, I am sure, I'm not a big fan of changing what I'm used to, so we've tried to make the new site as reader-friendly as possible. I hope you find it worthy of continued reading. - Mike McCarville

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Oklahoma's Top Political Stories Of 2011

On January 1st, we'll present Oklahoma's top stories of 2011 from some of Oklahoma's premier consultants and pundits.

Some of the suggestions may surprise you and others will be obvious. Regardless, the lists make for interesting reading.

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