Ups and downs
Break out your seersucker and linen, because it’ll be your last chance until Memorial Day 2019 according to the fashionista aphorism: No white after Labor Day. Of course, that makes a whole lot more sense if you live in a city where the weather isn’t sweatinducing through Thanksgiving.
If you planned on spending the long weekend at the beach, maybe stay out of the water — or at least mix some hand sanitizer into your sunscreen. Six Galveston Bay beaches were listed for unsafe bacteria levels.
Maybe things will chill down sooner than we think. According to the Farmers’ Almanac, Texas can expect “stinging cold, average precipitation” this winter. Bad news for gardeners, good news for galoshes.
This is where the thumb was supposed to go about Friday’s heated debate between Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, but apparently the two couldn’t hash out the details for the first of five proposed showdowns. Both candidates have said they want to debate. But first, their staffs have to debate about the debates. Are both sides actually negotiating in good faith? Debatable.
If you want to catch Beto on television before the eventual debate, check out “Ellen” on Wednesday. Nothing appeals to Texas voters like a daytime talk show filmed in beautiful Burbank, Calif.
The Golden State may have a bear on its flag, but like plenty of other Californians, even the bears have gone to Texas. The zoo opened its new habitat this week for Belle and Willow, a pair of 5-year-old North American black bears who were picked up as cubs from behind a California restaurant. There was a time when black bears roamed the Texas wilderness, but now their habitat has all but disappeared.
Speaking of cages, former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling is out from behind bars after serving a 14-year prison sentence. Skilling was convicted on 18 counts of fraud and conspiracy and one count of insider trading. So what’s next for Skilling? Well, with a résumé like that one, he’d fit in great in the White House Cabinet.
Here’s some ethics advice for any aspiring politicians: If someone offers you an all-expenses-paid trip to Azerbaijan, don’t take it. Ten members of Congress, including Houston Reps. Ted Poe and Sheila Jackson Lee, made that mistake in 2013. The whole thing raised eyebrows at the time, and this week the man who organized the trip — Houston businessman Kemal Oksuz — was arrested in Armenia. Oksuz is charged with submitting falsified documents to the Office of Congressional Ethics regarding that trip.