Author Archives: Red from Texas

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About Red from Texas

I'm proud to be Red. I have lived most of my life in Texas and I love this place. Here are a few things you should know about me. 1. I am happily married and intend to stay so. 2. I live in a house that is older than you, unless you are really old. 3. I own 2 rifles and a shotgun. I think handguns are just trouble. 4. I have never killed a man, but have taken out some deer and hogs. 5. I was a good student, but never close to being valedictorian. 6. In no particular order I like the Houston Texans, San Antonio Spurs, Houston Astros, FC Barcelona, Tottenham Hotspur, Texas Longhorns and Houston Dynamo. 7. I hate Dallas but always have a good time when I go there. 8. I was a Dallas Cowboys fan for 26 years but declared that I was no longer a fan during the 1987 strike. 9. I don't own any pets. I like cats, and a good dog and I have met at least 3 of them in my lifetime. 10. I think the best part of Texas is west of I-35. 11. I own two pairs of cowboy boots, but don't wear them very often. 12. I don't have a pronounced Texas accent, but can affect one when needed. 13. My last meal would be fried shrimp with tartar sauce, a baked potato with all the fixins', a dinner salad with 1000 Island dressing, yeast rolls and chocolate fudge pie for dessert. 14. I'm an old Dad, but my children are none of your business. 15. I have two degrees from UT-Austin and somehow managed to fall in love with and marry an Aggie. 16. Most of my family are right-wing nut jobs but I love them anyway. 17. When I get to play golf on a regular basis, I shoot in the low 80's. 18. I don't get to play golf on a regular basis. 19. I think Fort Worth is the best town in Texas by a long shot. 20. I have a mean herb garden. Regards, Red P.S. Remember it's not a color, it's a state of mind.

Today in Texas History – November 24

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From the Annals of Law Enforcement – In 1835, the Republic of Texas authorized a special law enforcement unit known as the Texas Rangers. Stephen F. Austin had hired ten experienced frontiersmen as “rangers” as early as 1823, but the 1835 legislation formalized the organization.  The Rangers have a mixed history at best.  They were instrumental in securing the early Republic, but at the expense of various Indian tribes who had claims to the land and not all of whom were aggressive warriors like the Comanche and Kiowa.   The Rangers  were also employed to restore order during various blood feuds, border disturbances, and civic upheavals. In the early twentieth century, however, certain renegade Rangers abused their positions of authority predated on Hispanics, African-Americans and other powerless groups.  The force was decimated in 1933 when Gov. Ma Ferguson dismissed the entire squad in an overt act of political retaliation for the Rangers open support of her opponent Ross Sterling.  When the Department of Public Safety was created in 1935, the Rangers took on a new role.  Today they are recognized as an elite unit of 150 commissioned officers drawn from the ranks of DPS officers with at least 8 years of law enforcement experience.  Prospective Rangers undergo rigorous selection, testing and the position requires specialized training.  Their responsibilities include major incident crime investigations, unsolved crime/serial crime investigations, public corruption investigations, officer involved shooting investigations, and border security operations.

 

Weekend Improvement Project – Not for the Squeamish

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Keep on moving if viewing a dead wild hog is going to ruin your day.  Red understands and is not judgmental about those who are judgmental about Red.

Red was out exercising his new and entirely superfluous constitutional right to hunt in Texas this weekend.  Red clearly understands that hunting is not for everyone and that not everyone will approve.  That said, wild hogs are a complete menace in Texas.  They harm the land, cause erosion and soil loss, destroy vegetation, displace and predate on native fauna and are on rare occasions dangerous.   The weekend tally was Red 1 Hogs 1.   Red will be distributing a lot of sausage to friends and family this Christmas.

Evan Hog

Red Out

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Red will be mostly out for the next week and posting only sporadically – if at all.

This weekend, Red will be exercising his new and entirely superfluous constitutionally protected right to hunt in Texas subject to reasonable regulations – whatever the heck that means.  For Red, the annual hunting trip or two is more of an excuse to enjoy the outdoors in beautiful fall weather, sit around the fire with old friends, sip some whiskey, perhaps even enjoy a cigar, walk through the woods with a gun pretending he is going to kill something, and occasionally take down a deer for venison or a wild hog just because wild hogs need killing.

After that, Red will be returning home to prepare the Thanksgiving feast and then head out with the family to meet up with the rest of the clan somewhere in the Hill Country.  This year Red will be roasting an organic turkey on the Weber, making a sweet potato casserole, fresh cranberry relish, a delightful green salad, yeast rolls, and a chocolate fudge pie.  Someone else is bringing the pecan pie.  And in case you didn’t know, Red is a helluva good cook.

So Red wishes everyone safe travels and a happy Thanksgiving – even Ted Cruz (TP-Texas).

Red’s Texas College Football Game of the Week

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Red’s Texas College Football Game of the Week features a rematch between 9-1 Mary Hardin-Baylor and 9-1 Hardin Simmons – this time in a win or go home NCAA Division III playoff game at Shelton Stadium in Abilene.  Loyal readers will perhaps remember Red picking the HSU Cowboys to prevail in the regular season game in late October.  Red called that one correctly as the Cowboys eked out a 29-26 win over the UMHB Crusaders with both teams not coming close to their season scoring averages.

A week later, however, HSU posted their only loss of the season at East Texas Baptist going down in a close 26-21 contest with their lowest scoring output by far all season.  They rebounded to crush Louisiana College 82-21 last week.  Meanwhile, UHMB responded to their only loss by butt-whipping Howard Payne and East Texas Baptist – notching 67 points in each victory.

It is always hard to beat a team twice in one season, but Red calls it for the Cowboys once again in a close one.  HSU 45 UHMB 41.

One More Thing For Red to Worry About

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First Coast News reports that incidence of the Kissing Bug in Texas is rising.  The insidious insect has been reported in Bexar, Medina and Comal County.

A bug with a deadly bite is in Texas. Doctors say the kissing bug is a silent killer.

“While it’s sucking your blood it defecates. In that feces is the parasite,” said Dr. Anil Mangla, the Assistant Director for the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District.

That parasite leads to Chagas disease. It finds a home in your tissue and muscles, including your heart.

Dr. Mangla said symptoms often include pain in the gut or swelling where the bug bit the person. He also said a person can go as long as twenty years before the parasite takes its toll.

“One of the major symptoms is sudden death,” Dr. Mangla said.

Uh, that sounds bad.

Today in Texas History – November 20

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From the Annals of Journalism – In 1941, writer Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker gave a speech at Southern Methodist University in which he advocated for United States entry into World War II.  After his address, HRK engaged in a heated debate with students who opposed his views.  Knickerbocker was born in Yoakum, Texas and graduated from Southwestern University in Georgetown.  He moved to New York and began a distinguished career in journalism. HRK later relocated to Munich, Germany, with the intention of studying psychiatry, but witnessed Adolf Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923.  He resumed his journalism career becoming chief Berlin correspondent for the New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia Public Ledger. In 1931 Knickerbocker won the Pulitzer Prize for his articles describing and analyzing the Soviet Five-Year Plan. With the Nazi takeover in 1933, however, due to his strong opposition to Hitler, he was expelled from Germany.  He forecast the coming conflagration in his book Will War Come to Europe and after the outbreak spent much of his energy attempting to convince Americans that the U.S. should join in the fight against Nazism.

Quote for the Day

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“I reached some plains so vast, that I did not find their limit anywhere I went, although I travelled over them for more than 300 leagues … with no more land marks than if we had been swallowed up by the sea …. [T]here was not a stone, nor bit of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor anything to go by.”

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in a letter to the King of Spain on Oct. 20, 1541, describing the Llano Estacado, somewhere on the southern great plains (i.e. the Panhandle) of Texas

Houston to Host Games for Copa America Centario

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Houston will be hosting at least 3 games for the Copa America Centario – the second biggest soccer tournament to ever be played in the U.S.  Not since the 1994 World Cup has the U.S. been host to such a high-profile tournament.  In 1994, detractors wondered whether the U.S. would support the world’s biggest single sport event, but those questions were washed away with all time record attendance numbers and a smoothly run tournament.

The Copa America Centario –  to be played from June 3 to 26, 2016 –  is essentially an expanded version of the bi-annual Copa America tournament which determines the champion of South America.  Since there are only 10 countries in COMEBOL, the South American federation, tournament organizers have traditionally invited 2 other teams to create a 12 team tournament.

The Copa America Centario will feature 16 teams – all 10 from South America, plus the U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica and the winners of playoffs between Panama v. Cuba and Trinidad-Tobago v. Haiti.  The tournament will feature world renown players such as Lionel Messi of Argentina, James Rodriguez of Columbia, Neymar, Jr. of Brasil and Giovanni Dos Santos of Mexico.

Other cities that will host games are New York, Orlando, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Phoenix.

Red will be first in line for tickets and is hoping the Argentina will return to Texas for at least one game.

 

We Don’t Need No Smart Peoples Telling Us What to be Learnin’ our Childrens

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In the face of numerous absurd statements in a recently published history book, the State Board of Education – which authorized the ridiculed textbook – has rejected a proposal to have people who might actually know something about history review textbooks for accuracy.  The 8-7 vote against the proposal at least indicates that not every member of the Board is a Tea Party hack.  But it is clear, that the Board functions as a wing of the Tea Party and is attempting to indoctrinate Texas students with conservative ideology at the expense of actual facts.  The Trailblazer Blog of the Dallas Morning News has more.

State Board of Education members on Wednesday narrowly rejected a plan to create a group of state university professors to scour Texas schoolchildren’s textbooks for factual errors.

The vote against was 8-7, with all the board’s Republicans except two opposing the measure.

The push for more experts to be involved came after more than a year of controversy over board-sanctioned books’ coverage of global warming, descriptions of Islamic history and terrorism and handling of the Civil War and the importance of Moses and the Ten Commandments to the founding fathers.

A tipping point to add more fact checking may have come last month. A suburban Houston mom’s alert that a newly approved geography text described African slaves forcibly brought to North America as “workers” set off a national furor.

At issue is whether the board should continue to rely on publishers and the public to flag errors. Currently, citizen panels nominated by the board have a narrower mission – to determine whether a book fits into Texas’ curriculum standards. Mostly, current and retired teachers sit on the panels.

Board vice chairman Thomas Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, offered the backstop panel of university professors as an amendment to a proposed overhaul of textbook approval procedures. Under his proposal, the board could set up a new panel drawn “solely from Texas institutions of higher education” to check the books for errors.

“I know that people are concerned about pointy headed liberals in the ivory tower making our process … worse,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we reach out to them and say let’s make sure these books are as factually accurate as possible?”

Why indeed?