6.11.2020

Random Thursday Morning Thoughts


  • Coronavirus - Texas set another record yesterday with an eye-opening 2,504 new cases (previous record was 1,949)  and, more importantly, another record-breaking number of those hospitalized at 2,153. Good grief.
  • Wise County: 6 active. 57 total.
  • "Abbott's staff did not respond to questions about whether the increase . . . would slow or halt the reopening process." 
  • I never thought I'd see the day that NASCAR banned all Confederate flags.  But in all seriousness, I think you'll see a major revolt from its fan base along with the financial hit that will go with it. And that "sport" was already on shaky footing to begin with.
    The Confederacy: Still taking loses in 2020. 
  • And with Confederate statues coming down left and right along with military officials saying on Tuesday that they are open to renaming U.S. forts which are currently named after Confederate military commanders, there seemed to be a real awakening going on. But then Trump, as he sat on the porch, sipping a mint julep, and patting his dog Beauregard, came to defend the nation's past sins.  Who is advising him to choose the wrong side here?  I'm not sure I've seen a political implosion like the one that he is going through. 
  • But wait, there's more. Trump also announced that he will have his first "rally" in Tulsa which is coming up on the 100th anniversary of the Black Wall Street Massacre. Tulsa! On Juneteenth. He's not even trying to hide it any more. Serious question: Will Trump's people allow Confederate flags at the rally? 
  • And that announcement came on the same day that an official with the Tulsa PD said this. 
  • Do we have any Confederate memorials or statues in Wise County?
  • Trump is gonna get mad at Fox News again. 
    Don't they know that unfavorable polls
    are just "Fake News?"

    "Going Down"
  • I don't know what these middle-of-the-night ramblings were about last night. Protesting = taunting? Protesters = ugly anarchists? Promising a federal invasion? Once again, he uses language of division. And the mayor responded.

  • Slidell's high school basketball team opting out of the UIL's ceremony honoring them as state finalists is interesting. But the UIL really did screw that day up as they shut the whole tournament down with no notice and no communication. 
  • VP Mike Pence deleted this, but I'm not sure why.  Clearly social distancing is being violated but they longer care about that -- it's been 44 day since they last held a Task Force briefing. And there is one black guy front and center which could be interpreted as a prop, but they don't care about that either. 
  • Something going on in Graham?....

at 8:32 AM

6.10.2020

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • Coronavirus - Texas. We hit another high yesterday in a hospitalizations. If any number should be the gold standard, it's hospitalizations. Right? Shouldn't we be more concerned? And that's a heck of a sustained trend we've got going.

  • Wise County: Total 57, Active 6 (+1), Deaths 5.
  • It looks like Wise County will have a BLM-like rally around the courthouse on Sunday at 4:00. In looking at some social media pages which I never visit, some people are treating it like the Nazis are coming to town. We aren't that backwoods, are we? 
  • The 180s continue.  Why in the heck arrest them in the first place? 
  • How many times have I written Too Many Police?™ over the years? You know, I should have trademarked and sold that question to those who thought Defund the Police was a good idea. Mine better conveys the message. 
  • Very Random Thought: Did I ever tell you I came up with idea of anti-lock brakes on my own in 1975? (I don't know when they were invented, but I had never heard of them when I came up with the idea in my teenage brain.)
  • In watching people argue whether there is "systemic racism" with the police, I was reminded of the Tulia scandal in Texas in 1999 which eventually caused every "drug task force" in the state to disband. That included the very wheels off Cross Timbers Task Force which ran around Wise County. 
  • Hey, look, a white guy! And get a load of this quote from his father who said this about his home schooled kid  “He has grandiose ideas, a lot of them . . . and zero common sense . . . . I’m still proud of him, whether he burned down the police station or not. He didn’t hurt nobody, did he?”
  • There was a similar George Floyd death by the Williamson County Sheriff's Office last year where the video was just released after the Sheriff fought to keep it from the press. It's been big news in the Austin area, but I don't know if that story has the legs of the Floyd incident. But at least one state rep and one county commissioner wants the Sheriff to resign. The Sheriff called the commissioner a dirty lib (basically). Note: Live PD was riding along for the incident but claims they didn't keep the footage. (Riiigggggt.) A&E has put Live PD on hiatus for unrelated reasons. The body cam video does exist.
  • Oh, and Cops has been cancelled. Not the real cops, the show. 
  • And the new streaming service HBO Max has shelved Gone With The Wind. I'm not on board with that. It's way too close to book burning. 
  • Confederate statues are coming down in Tarrant County and even Denton County. That wouldn't have happened two years ago.  But I've never understood why we've honored people who took up arms against the United States. 

  • Wait. This was allowed?
  • There was a guy in Bridgeport selling Trump gear at the intersection of 380 and 101 yesterday. He had quite a few customers.
     
  • This guy in New Jersey who was off to the side "re-enacting" the murder of George Floyd as a protest was passing by probably wants to rethink that bit. Or, who knows, maybe not. People are crazy. (Video of the incident.)
  • This is awful out of Mesquite. And it comes on the heels after a family of six were found dead in a murder-suicide in San Antonio.
     
  • TxDot's horribly designed interchanged at 287 and 380 in Decatur has always been a disaster. One reason is when vehicles westbound on 380 exit to go northbound on 287. The turn is so sharp that the fence and railing there have been crushed at least a dozen times. I noticed the last time it was knocked over that TxDot basically gave up and left it unrepaired for at least six months. Then about one month ago crews came out and fixed it. Since then, I had seen that it had been destroyed in two different places. And this morning, according to the Update, a truck overturned taking the turn. 
  • Messenger: Above the Fold


at 8:36 AM

6.09.2020

Random Tuesday Morning Thoughts


  • Holy crap. Trump just did this. If you had "old man bleeding out of his ears had it coming" on your bingo card, you win.  He's a madman. He's a disinformation machine. The comparisons to Hitler losing his mind during the final days aren't that funny anymore. And he's getting his information from OANN!: 
  • There's no limit to the amount of contempt I feel for that man. And if you support him, you own him. All of him. He is your leader. You have no excuses. 
  • Now on to what I had written . . . 
  • As the Coronavirus now fights to regain headlines over protesting for social justice, this post about the combination of the two made me laugh. He ain't wrong. 
  • Wise County 'rona numbers: 55 total. 5 active.  But we've had two new deaths hit the books which brings that total up to 5 as well.  
  • Texas numbers for Monday was enough to cause the seven day average to trend upwards again. More importantly, we beat the record for the current number of hospitalizations which had been set on May 5th.  So the numbers were enough for us to shut down in April, huh? 
  • This report got lots of attention yesterday, but the headline also got roundly criticized as misleading. You might want to put it in your "I'm not sure about that" category -- a category which should be bulging at the seems. 
  • You think the stock market makes any sense? Yesterday the S&P recovered to such a point that it's the same now as it was on December 31, 2019. So it's just like 2020 never happened. 
  • It won't be a lot of peoples' cup of tea, but this week's episode of  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about policing in light of the murder of George Floyd is getting a lot of buzz -- especially the way the show ended. It's chilling. (Language warning.) 
  • We are seeing lots of police departments doing lots of 180s on these arrests.  And, note, they weren't arrested in Fort Worth for "rioting" they were arrested for being on the 7th Street Bridge and being tear gassed by police. One of them was from Bridgeport, but  I never did get a name. (My Faithful Reader Army failed me.)
  • I might enjoy her more than Sarah Sanders because she's more likely to give us gold. From yesterday:
  • Man, Drudge loves sticking it to Trump.
  • The new Wall (no, not that one that hasn't been built which Mexico isn't paying for) really is ridiculous.
  • AG Bill Barr is probably in trouble this morning. 
  • UT, which still plans on holding in-person classes this Fall, says students and instructors will wear masks. Assuming that fans are allowed at football games, how will that work out there? 
  • A couple of screenshots from over the weekend. 
    DPD screwed that one up.
    Fox apologized yesterday for this one. 
  • The Colonial has the greatest field in its history this week. After experiencing the heat and humidity, most may never come back. 
  • With Cary Bohn dropping out of the Decatur's mayoral race, Decatur's next mayor will be a graduate of Bridgeport High School. (The same year as me, by the way). I'm guessing that has never happened before. 


at 8:34 AM

6.08.2020

Random Monday Morning Thoughts



  • A weekend of massive protests without a violence. The images were stunning. This feels different, but the length of the public's attention span does not have a good track record. 
    Random Philadelphia Image
  • BagOfNothing posed a great question: This weekend, did your pastor address the George Floyd situation and all that it implies? If not, why not? 
  • A Wall Street Journal poll reveals that 80% of Americans think the nation is spiraling out of control.  Just 80%?
  • Heck of a weekend. Colin Powell says he won't vote for Trump because he lies with impunity, Mitt Romney marches with Black Lives Matters, and AG Barr says "Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. It's not chemical"


  • Here's a list of the 17 people arrested in the big cockfighting "raid" this weekend in Wise County. I suppose this is all about animal cruelty but, then again, I hope no one had chicken fried steak for dinner last night. 
  • "Defund the police?" Good lord. Can I offer my services as a marketer of your message?  How about "Rethink Policing", "Demilitarize the Police",  or "What Would Sheriff Andy Taylor Do?"
  • Going back to my not-so-original theory of the coded language of racism, I re-watched 13th this weekend. I couldn't believe I had forgotten that the prominent phrase of coded racism by politicians throughout the last few decades has been "Law and Order". It's a not-so-subtle "us vs. them" or, at its core, "white vs. black."  (You have to see the film to understand.) Right now it is being used as code for "cops vs. black looters." It's the phrase Trump has latched onto as the nation crumbles around him. 
  • His message should be one of unity: There are some bad cops and there are some bad protesters (when they result to looting), but we have a systemic problem of racism in this country that we need to finally confront. That's simple. That's easy. But no. He wants people to choose sides. And today, as Houston holds a massive memorial service for George Floyd today, Trump will meet only with law enforcement and then hold a photo-op where where he'll frame the issue as one of either supporting the police or not. Once again, making it a "choose your side" issue.
  • And he does it another way with the false equivalency of  "Country and Flag vs. Black NFL Players." It's a messaging of division. It's a messaging of taking sides. (And never forget he called those players who kneel "sons of bitches.")

  • Coronavirus update. 
    • Wise County: Can't help ya there.  We get no updates over the weekend. 
    • Texas: We'll have the slight dip due to the typical slow reporting of weekend numbers and then we'll see if the disturbing trend continues. 
  • Speaking of, do we need to issue a Silver Alert? Somebody at least needs to check on him.
  • I'd like to report cheap packaged oatmeal with milk is a krillion times better that with water. 

at 8:35 AM

6.05.2020

It's Friday -- Let's Get Out Of Here






at 2:30 PM
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