Fire Island Hot Glass Studio is closing. That’s really sad. They have long been Austin’s premiere art glass artisans. Truly amazing stuff. This weekend is their final closing sale, and I think I may have to pester Lin about going, as well as spend some of my software savings to get something. Just a little something to remember them by.
I missed Governor Perry’s State of the State address last night, and I haven’t read it yet either, but I hear he wants to sell our state lottery to a private corporation in order to get more Texans health care. First, I doubt many people in need of proper health care will see much benefit from this idea, and what is going to happen to the money the lottery is supposed to be providing to our school systems when it is in private hands? I see no good coming of this except for the company that buys the lottery. More Texas money leaving the state and not getting put to good use for the citizens of Texas all in the name of helping Texans. Sort of like our privately owned toll roads and the selling of state parks. I think the question that really needs to be asked is who exactly is Perry wanting to sell it to?
A State Representative from Baytown wants to make missing a parent-teacher conference a misdemeanor crime that comes with a $500 fine. I’m not even going to rant about this just yet until I see if it has wings and takes off, but really … why don’t we just criminalize everything and attach huge fines?!
Speaking of laws, the Travis County Sheriff’s Department would like to leave it to the discretion of deputies working the rural areas as to whether or not people caught engaging in certain misdemeanor crimes should only be ticketed or hauled into the station. A) I don’t like the idea of leaving any law enforcement decisions up to anyone’s discretion, and B) vandalism, marijuana, graffiti, and the other crimes they say they want this discretion on should either be only ticket-receiving offenses everywhere or require a trip to the station everywhere. Otherwise, the application of the law will not be equal for all offenders, particularly is someone’s “discretion” is what is the deciding factor. If I get caught with a joint downtown, it should be treated the same as if I was caught with a joint out on a country road, and how far away the station is and not having enough deputies to cover the area while someone is taken to the station should not even factor into it. Not to mention, this sort of thing is just RIPE for abuse.
I would suppose that most of you have already heard about the astronaut that went batshit insane, drove all the way from Houston to Florida wearing diapers and is now sitting in jail charged with attempted murder. Either this proves that even astronauts are human and can snap just like any of us or that the psych evaluations at NASA are worthless. If you haven’t heard anything about it, go to any major news outlet and read up on it. It’s a pretty crazy tale.
In really, REALLY local news, a few blocks away, two men wearing black pants, black boots, and tee shirts with “POLICE” on the front talked their way into a house a few blocks from us, tied up the residents, threatened them with guns, and stole some valuables … and last week, also not far from our house, there was a sobriety checkpoint on a highway access road that wasn’t really a checkpoint run by police (sobriety checkpoints are illegal in Texas), yet people stopped and gave them all manner of personal information and let them search their vehicles. These are the sorts of things that happen when people are so afraid of not doing whatever someone who says they are a cop tells them to do for fear of actual police. We are becoming a world of sheeple when it comes to submitting to law enforcement officers … or people who look like them … without asking questions. The cops say if you are ever in doubt to as to see the officer’s credentials and they will gladly show them to you. Yeah. Right. The last time I simply asked for one’s badge number, the cop in question got offended, and I didn’t get the badge number.
The only good local news to be reported today is the shell of a building that Intel left in downtown Austin some five years ago is going to be imploded on February 25th (at a cost of 1.3 million dollars). It’s been a hideous eyesore for far too long. Of course, it’s replacement isn’t likely to be much better … a 65 million dollar federal court building.
And so ends today’s look at my local news. :)