Thumbs up, down
Don’t punish yourself like Giles, get vexed like Cruz or manipulated like Abbott.
No, it isn’t Mexican Independence Day, but that won’t stop barhoppers from knocking back tequila shots for Cinco de Mayo. So if you choose to celebrate victory at the Battle of Puebla over Napoleon III, who invaded Mexico to demand repayment of debts, then please remember not to drink and drive.
Break out your raincoats and make a list of everyone you know who owns a flat-bottom boat, because we’re less than one month away from the beginning of hurricane season. Just a reminder: It takes 30 days for flood insurance to go into effect. So don’t get caught high and dry — or wet and submerged. Go buy your flood insurance now. It doesn’t matter if you never flooded. It doesn’t matter if you don’t live in a flood plain. This year might be the year.
How will you know if a flood is headed your way? During a meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board, Judge Ed Emmett promised that one way or another, the county will invest in emergency notification systems to alert people whose homes can unexpectedly end up underwater. Think of the sudden releases from the Addicks and Barker dams, which are operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, and from the Lake Conroe/Lake Houston dams, which are run by the San Jacinto River Authority. We don’t know yet if these dam-related warning systems will take the form of old-fashioned signs and sirens, notifications on official maps or even high-tech flooding apps and reverse 911s. All of these tools may be necessary to better alert our community to the myriad dangers of living upstream and downstream of dams during major floods.
There’s no crying in baseball, but nobody said anything about punching yourself in the face. Maybe someone needs to write that rule after watching Ken Giles smack himself around when leaving the mound in Tuesday’s Astros game. The pitcher was understandably angry after letting four of the first five men he faced reach base. Manager A.J. Hinch put it well: “I understand the frustration, I understand how much these guys put into it, but in an ideal world you handle it a little bit more calmly and without the violence.”
After watching Beto O’Rourke hold town halls in deep-red towns across Texas, it looked like U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz was returning the favor when he went on a tour of the Fifth Ward Multi-Service Center in deep-blue northeast Houston this week. The take-away quote: “I’m frustrated out of my mind with the Houston Chronicle!”
No, he wasn’t frustrated with a late morning delivery or a particularly difficult Jumble. The senator was complaining that he didn’t get enough coverage from your local daily newspaper about a post-Harvey tax credit. Of course, we know he said all this because reporter Keri Blakinger was in the room giving, uh, coverage to the senator. By the way, there are at least three different Chron articles about that tax provision, including a Q&A with the senator himself. So the next time the Addicks and Barker dams are pushed to the brink or a storm surge forces a 25-foot wall of water up the Houston Ship Channel, rest comfortably knowing that you could have filled out IRS form 4684 to deduct Harvey-related damage not covered by insurance without having to itemize your other deductions. It’s as simple as that. Now there, don’t you feel safer already?
Say what you will about Gov. Greg Abbott. At least he kept us safe during Jade Helm. Remember that 2015 fiasco where the governor deployed the National Guard — at taxpayer expense — to, um, make sure that Obama didn’t round up Texans into FEMA camps or something?
Well it turns out Abbott may or may not have been manipulated by Russian disinformation, Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, said on the Morning Joe podcast this week.
Hey President Putin, if you’re reading this, how about some propaganda that, say, George Soros will make barbecue illegal unless Abbott calls a post-Harvey special session to fund flood-control infrastructure. Maybe that could persuade the guv to leap into action.