City considers free pet adoptions for vets

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January 4, 2018

d55fb9da0cd7c60472182b13ef001250 — Odessa Animal Control Clerk Elisha Washington, right, helps Kashia Craig as she adopts a poodle mix for her father Dec. 28, 2016 at the shelter.

The Odessa City Council will consider allowing veterans and active duty military service members to adopt pets from animal control for free, waiving fees of up to about $80.

The council is scheduled to vote on waving the fees during their Jan. 9 meeting, and individual council members have already said they support the change.

The idea stems from national programs such as Pets for Vets, a nonprofit that pairs veterans with dogs and cats adopted from rescues and trained as companions, with a goal of providing mental and physical health benefits to the veterans and homes for the animals. City staff said District 1 Councilman Malcolm Hamilton suggested adopting a similar program.

City staff cited the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans and medical studies showing the benefits of pet ownership as support for the program.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports ownership of dogs and cats can lead to health benefits such as improved moods, decreased stress and anxiety, and promoting socialization.

The adoption fees are meant to help offset costs of veterinary care for an animal that includes vaccinations, spaying or neutering, and microchipping. Those costs typically amount to more than $110. Odessa Animal Control is overseen by the Odessa Police Department.

“Our biggest issue there is overcrowding, obviously,” Odessa Police Chief Mike Gerke said. “And this would be a win-win: You prevent overcrowding and you help the veteran.”

Odessa native headed to Sundance Festival

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Staff Reports

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January 4, 2018

A small white and tan dog chimed in with the ring of a doorbell and inside an Odessa home, tucked in the back of a winding housing addition, lighted Christmas decorations cast a warm glow in the living room. As everyone got comfortable on cozy couches and chairs, the Millers seemed like just another family enjoying their Christmas break.

But the Millers aren’t your average Odessa family and 18-year-old Reid Miller isn’t your average Texas teenager. Some days he works up to 12-hour days in Los Angeles to pursue his dreams.

Reid started acting at the age of 13, graduated high school at the age of 15, and for the past four years has been traveling back and forth from Odessa to Los Angeles to build a career in Hollywood. And his mother, Megan, has been there to support him along the way—whether it’s to help negotiate contracts or help set up headshots for a portfolio.

Later this month Reid will be heading to the 2018 Sundance Film Festival after the short film “WYRM” was selected, in which he plays the leading role.

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Megan said out of the 40,000 films that were submitted, only 60 are chosen in three categories, so in Reid’s category only 20 films were selected.

“So the fact that they picked it out of that big of a pool is a big deal and it’s really exciting,” Reid added. “And what’s also really exciting is that a lot of big stars are gonna be there so I’m hoping I get to, like, meet some of my heroes like Robert Downy Jr., (or) any of the Avengers.”

Reid said he has always wanted to go to the Sundance Film Festival, but they wanted to have a reason to go because it is costly. But this year it was in the back of their minds, he said, because they knew “WYRM” turned out “fantastic.”

“It’s gonna be a new and awesome experience,” he said.

This year has been Reid’s busiest year since he began, starring as Pete Hickey on Play by Play, a TV series on Verizon’s mobile channel Go90, and having minor roles in other TV Series including The Fosters and Training Day. He has also filmed a pilot for the TV Series Rounds this year; has been a part of the feature film F.R.E.D.I., which will have a soft premiere in May; and has a starring role in short film “A Love Deed.”

With more than 20 IMDb credits, Reid said he feels like each year he has progressed and he has a feeling this year will be a really good year.

His acting career began after taking part in an Applause Rising Talent Showcase, but the opportunity was really more like a door that was waiting to be opened.

“It wasn’t just a thing that was spur of the moment, like ‘I should be an actor. I should be in the movies.’ There’s always been that creative drive to create stuff,” Reid said.

His father, Shawn Miller, said from the time Reid was very small he always showed an intense interest and passion for making films and telling stories. From creating small stop-motion films to drawing tons of comics, Reid’s passion just continued to build.

“It wasn’t like a passing phase like I wanna be a movie star or that kind of thing,” Shawn said.

Now Reid spends more time writing than drawing and more time coaching, training and auditioning then he does making stop-motion films, but his passion remains the same.

His biggest goal is to one day be an action star like Tom Cruise, or portray a superhero when he gets older. His biggest motivation and why he really loves acting, he said, is because he loves to play other people.

“I love to step into the shoes of someone I would have never been and never have the opportunity to be and it’s like I get to live kind of different lives and get paid to do it. That’s why I especially love the Sci-Fi genre, because it’s like I — to be able to play out those scenarios and live in that world is like, you’re getting paid to play make-believe. You really are and that’s like the best job. I love that so much,” he said.

While Reid and his mother have spent more time in L.A. than they have Odessa this year due to a busier schedule, when they are able to come back home they recognize the slower pace.

“…It definitely feels like a vacation anytime I visit because I can actually sit down and breathe,” Reid said, as he drew in a deep breath. “L.A. is like hustle-bustle. It’s so fast and it never really slows down and the people never slow down. It’s always: go, go, go.”

He also has some interesting conversations with friends when he visits home, which is a good break from the constant networking he does when he’s in California. Reid recalled one of his friends asking him who he met this year and whether he’d met any stars.

“It’s just different because someone like a big star could walk down the street in L.A. and no one’s going to notice,” he said.

Reid’s friend Dawson Shrum, who he met through a local homeschooling group called IGNITED, said it’s pretty cool to have a friend in the TV and movie industry. For Shrum, it’s a neat experience to watch his best friend on a TV show and hear about the projects he works on.

Shrum said Reid is a hard worker, never gives up on anything and although it may seem like Hollywood and Odessa are two completely different worlds, Reid knows he’s just another person and “doesn’t act crazy.”

“At the end of the day, I know if I really need him, help be there. Even if he’s crazy busy, he’ll be there for me,” Shrum said. “It’s like we’re brothers almost.”

Although at 18 years old, Reid is officially an adult, he and his mother have agreed that she will be there for him as long as he wants her there. Reid said due to the fact he looks more like 15 than 18, people may try to take advantage of him and think he’s naïve.

“If I do another season of my show Play by Play, I probably wouldn’t need her with me because I’m so close with everyone on set. Like with all the other actors and the crew and there’s no weird anything, so that would be fine. But doing something new, or if I had to go out of the country, she would come with me and I would want her to because you never know what’s gonna go down,” he said.

Those interested in following Reid’s career can like his Facebook page, Reid Miller Actor, or follow him on Instagram @therealreidmiller.

SULLUM: The buck stops over there

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Staff Reports

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January 4, 2018

04cc84473c6314813893cb060d693273 — Sullum is a syndicated newspaper columnist with Creators Syndicate and a Senior Editor at Reason magazine.

After he won what he erroneously described as an Electoral College “landslide,” Donald Trump explained away his failure to attract the support of most voters by conjuring “millions of people who voted illegally” — a massive fraud that somehow went completely undetected by election officials throughout the country. A few days after taking office, Trump revived that fantastical claim, setting a pattern for the excuse making and blame shifting that would mark the first year of his presidency. Here are some of the highlights.

Smooth talk. A hasty, half-baked executive order that Trump issued on January 27 immediately blocked entry by travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, including legal permanent residents of the United States and people who had already received visas. Despite the ensuing chaos as hundreds of people were detained at airports around the country, Trump insisted that “we had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban,” blaming any problems on the judges who blocked its enforcement.

Who’s the boss? After the first travel ban got bogged down in the courts, Trump issued a revised version that was designed to be more legally defensible. Then he acted as if he had nothing to do with the executive order he had signed, tweeting, “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version.”

Secretarial oversight. “It is so pathetic that the Dems have still not approved my full Cabinet,” Trump complained on March 3. At that point, the White House still had not sent the Republican-controlled Senate the nomination paperwork for the two Cabinet jobs that remained vacant.

Tax dodge. After making an issue of his tax returns by repeatedly promising to release them but never actually doing so, Trump blamed the news media for creating a phony controversy. “Nobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters,” he said on May 4, contradicting polls finding that most Americans think he should make the information public.

Comey cover. When Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May, the White House said he did so at the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who argued that Comey deserved to be sacked because he had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly while investigating her email practices as secretary of state. Trump, who had long complained that Comey went too easy on Clinton, later admitted the Rosenstein memo was nothing more than window dressing for a decision he had already made.

‘They lost Ryan.’ After a Navy SEAL, William Ryan Owens, was killed during a raid in Yemen on January 29, Trump made it clear that his role as commander in chief did not mean he bore any responsibility for the operation. “This was a mission that was started before I got here,” Trump said on Fox News a month later. “This was something that…they wanted to do. They came to see me, and they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected….and they lost Ryan.”

‘They have decision-making ability.’ Even after Trump had been on the job more than eight months, he was not prepared to accept responsibility for military mishaps on his watch. He emphasized that he did “not specifically” authorize an October 4 mission in Niger that ended with four American soldiers dead, because “my generals and my military, they have decision-making ability.”

Careless condolence. When Trump called the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the soldiers killed in Niger, his awkward attempt at condolences, which included a statement to the effect that Johnson “knew what he signed up for,” offended her. Instead of apologizing, Trump blamed the controversy on a congresswoman who was present during the call and accurately reported the widow’s reaction.

Trump is hardly the first president to blame other people for his failures, but he does so more promiscuously and preposterously than any of his recent predecessors. I’d say these episodes reveal a man who seems constitutionally incapable of accepting responsibility, but even that sounds like an excuse.

Music therapist helps students express themselves

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Staff Reports

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January 4, 2018

1eb60277b384a14f8a29b79e20c1de54 — Jennifer Mosman sings to students in Nicole Rodriguez’s class at Lamar Early Education Center while they pick activities out of her big orange bag.

For Jennifer Mosman, music is truly the universal language.

A music therapist for Ector County Independent School District for the past 29 years, Mosman uses melodies to help special needs students express themselves.

Music therapy is used to address physical emotional, cognitive and social needs of people, information from the American Music Therapy Association shows.

Mosman works with 133 children, age 3 to 22. Her method depends on what’s in their individualized education program, or IEP. With the district’s growth, she now travels to 23 campuses, whereas two years ago it was 15.

“I have to go wherever the kids are. It’s not per school, it’s per IEP (Individualized Education Plan),” Mosman said.

If a student moves to another campus, Mosman said she follows that child.

Mosman, who is from Columbia, Pa., earned a bachelor’s degree in music therapy from Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va. In Pennsylvania, she couldn’t work in the school system without a music education degree, but she can in Odessa.

The music therapist who had her position before Mosman went to the same college she did. That’s how she ended up in Odessa. “That’s what I always wanted to do was work in the school system, but I didn’t want to do music ed. I just wanted to do music therapy,” she said.

The students are what keep her coming back.

“I never know what they’re going to do or what they’re going to say,” Mosman said.

Her rewards are seeing the students participate, do something new or if they come in to class and are excited to see her when she walks in the door.

She has seen changes in the students she works with.

Last year, there was a boy with autism who wasn’t aware of anyone else in class and didn’t know there was anyone else around.

“I talked with the teacher and I came in one-on-one and worked with him, so now I have him at another campus and he can tell me ‘ball,’ he can look at me and he can count to 10. He now knows there are other people in the classroom, so those are the neat things — to see the spark for the kids,” Mosman said.

Music is useful in working with special needs children because it’s its own language.

“I work with a kid that’s bilingual and I don’t speak Spanish, but we’re able to still work on his goals and work on things, even though there’s a language barrier, using the music,” Mosman said.

Different students have different objectives and she said she can use songs to teach addition or reading comprehension, for example.

On a recent Wednesday at Lamar Early Education Center, Mosman was working with students in Nicole Rodriguez’s class having them select items from a large orange bag to determine their activities. Rodriguez said Mosman’s audience included 4- and 5-year-olds ranging in disability from autism, to intellectual to Down syndrome.

Rodriguez said music therapy has been quite effective for her youngsters, especially those who love music or who aren’t talking yet.

“… They seem to learn language easier with music with familiar songs. I have had a couple students that love music, so if you can incorporate that into learning new skills they’re way more engaged,” Rodriguez said.

Tunes also calm the students down, or they can hype them up, depending on the tempo.

“Music plays a role in their self regulation and all that,” Rodriguez said.

TEXAS VIEW: Mini mall fire hurts city's soul

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Texas View

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January 4, 2018

2c403ff4818638b7ff9af4971895041c — Denton Record-Chronicle logo

By Denton Record-Chronicle

We talk about preserving history.

We talk about incubating small businesses.

We talk about keeping Denton weird and offbeat and quirky.

The Downtown Mini Mall, destroyed from wall to wall in a four-alarm fire Tuesday morning, did all these things in its own unique way. It was a holdover of bygone Denton, in a secondhand manner of speaking.

The building on the Locust Street side of the Square long ago served as Beall’s department store, but for the better part of four decades, it’s been a marketplace of vendors selling vintage items, crafts, antiques and just plain stuff — one person’s cast-off stuff turned into someone else’s treasure.

Before the Square’s current incarnation — a vibrant hub of shops, eateries, coffeehouses and watering holes that keep the area hopping well into the night — downtown held a host of antique shops that are commonplace in a faded town center. (Coincidentally, Jupiter House, which received some damage in the blaze next door, was one of the first businesses that hinted at what the Square could be when it opened in 2003 as a round-the-clock espresso bar.)

The Mini Mall’s sister shop, Downtown Mini Mall II, was unharmed in the fire. It is now the last bastion of that antiques-heavy era. But the Mini Mall held in its nooks and crannies much more than just antiques.

You might find a young seamstress’ updated take on vintage clothing, cast iron skillets, old National Geographics, mysterious photographs from a century ago, that last item to outfit a baby’s nursery, a dusty accordion in tip-top shape, antique dolls too sly-eyed to be trusted; and in the window, a barrel full of swords and other curious replica weaponry.

And talk about small business. Scores of dealers have sold their wares in stalls at the mini malls. One photographer even used the Mini Mall as her home base. It’s never been the flashiest or biggest business around, but you could set up your space and make some money without having to tend shop everyday — even before the internet changed how people sell things to other people.

Our heart goes out to the business owners who lost their work in the fire. We worry, too, for the neighbors temporarily displaced on that east block of the Square — businesses, apartment dwellers, employees. We are grateful to our firefighters, who kept the blaze, huge though it was, from spreading to other historic buildings on the Square.

Our Square now has a black, gaping maw on one side. We are wounded, too, now, in knowing that our beloved downtown is not invulnerable.

>> Denton Record-Chronicle

TEXAS VIEW: Mini mall fire hurts city’s soul