Thumbs up, down
Bagwell takes a bow, concealed carry at two-year colleges, and salute to a guitar man.
“It was Bagwell and Biggio, Biggio and Bagwell, however you want to say it, but now, we’ll always be here in the Hall of Fame together.” With those words, the slugger whose impossibly wide batting stance powered the Astros’ offense during the team’s most glorious years claimed his place in Cooperstown. With the best buddy act in Houston baseball history now enshrined in the Hall of Fame, here’s looking forward to the day when Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa join them.
Lucky we had the Hall of Fame ceremony to celebrate, because it’s been a bad week for the home team. In the city where the Allen Brothers sold mosquito-infested real estate and Enron sold everybody a bill of goods, you’d think the best team in the American League could conjure up a big deal by the trade deadline. As Dallas sends Yu Darvish to the Dodgers, let’s hope the Astros haven’t become the first team to lose the World Series in July.
Remember when ethics reform was one of Gov. Greg Abbott’s top legislative priorities? Now he’s sending out emails soliciting campaign contributions during a special session, a sleazy practice that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus both admirably disavowed earlier this year. When state Rep. Sarah Davis, R-West University Place, this week led a bipartisan group calling on the governor to add ethics reform to the special session agenda, Abbott’s office blasted her and accused her of “showboating.” To paraphrase former Travis County DA Ronnie Earle, our governor calling somebody a showboat is like a toad calling somebody ugly.
If a nefarious Russian campaign crafted to undermine American democracy doesn’t cause alarm among Texas’ congressional delegation, consider this. When U.S. Reps. Randy Weber and Lamar Smith this week called for a Russia investigation, it wasn’t about hacking of voter databases or interference in the presidential election. Instead, the two Texas Republicans called for a probe into a conspiracy theory that Russia is secretly bankrolling environmental groups opposed to fracking. Hacking an election is apparently no big deal, but when they start messing with fracking, those pesky Russians have gone too far.
Praise the prof, and pass the ammunition. San Antonio College geography instructor Charles Smith doesn’t feel safe anymore, now that students with concealed carry permits are allowed to bring their guns onto community college campuses. On Tuesday, the day the new law kicked into effect, Smith taught his class wearing a bullet proof vest and helmet. “Used to, when they got mad at me, they had to go home and get the gun and had time to cool off,” Smith told the San Antonio Express-News. Maybe Texas should make Kevlar vests exempt from sales tax during the backto-school tax free weekend.
If there’s a rock ’n’ roll heaven, the band is about to sound a whole lot better. Guitarists across the state and around the globe are mourning the passing of Bill Collings, a Texan who spent his life making instruments for some of the greatest rock musicians of his generation. Collings was a young man working at a Houston oil field equipment company in 1975 when he started making guitars. He quickly earned a stellar reputation and became one of America’s finest luthiers, working out of a shop in suburban Austin that created instruments for the likes of Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon and Eddie Van Halen. If Gabriel ever decides to put down his horn and pick up a six-string, he knows who to call.