A shot in the ear

Yesterday, instead of embarking on a glorious and long-planned 9-day fall foliage tour, Mrs. Diddie got a shot in her balky knee, hoping to make it to knee replacement surgery next month, and I got a shot in the ear, hoping for some relief from the worst of the Meneiere's symptoms I have experienced all year.  I might get another one next month in the other ear if this one helps.  So far not so much, but I'm supposed to be patient.  (That's why they call us that, you know.  All the waiting.)

-- Turnout might be up but it's still too early to tell.

"I always vote, and it's much easier for me to come out to early voting ... than it is for me to stand in line on election day," said Michael Epstein, 77, who wanted to support HERO, City Councilwoman Ellen Cohen and mayoral candidate Chris Bell.

"He's a very honest, transparent fellow with a lot of experience, and I'd like to see him finally succeed," Epstein said of former Congressman Bell.

Good man, that Mr. Epstein.

-- Shitty man, that lieutenant governor of ours.

With the start of early voting Monday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick began lending his voice and his pocketbook to radio and TV ads urging Houston voters to reject the city's embattled equal rights ordinance.

The radio and TV ads totaling about $70,000 were paid for by Texans for Dan Patrick. 

The unfortunate thing is that the pro-Prop 1 folks don't have a somewhat famous endorser, despite what I am certain have been their efforts to secure one.  Beyonce' left them high and dry, and Noel Freeman, while tireless, committed, and -- at the moment -- Houston's most important activist in the fight for rights for everyone, doesn't quite have the profile of Hate Caucus jerks like Patrick and Lance Berkman and Bob McNair.  We need a late breaking hero for HERO, please.

-- "Is Hillary Clinton copying Bernie Sanders?  And why does it matter?"

“Bernie Sanders has rubbed off on Hillary Clinton. Not only has she stopped combing her hair, she’s railing against billionaires and Wall Street. But how tied up with big money is the Democrats’ darling? And what does this mean for the presidential campaign and party as a whole?”

-- Finally, the best of the news of the day. week, month, and maybe year.  Scalia says the death penalty is on the way out.

Referencing rulings to restrict capital punishment and changing sentiment within the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday he wouldn't be surprised if the nation's highest court invalidates the death penalty.

Scalia addressed capital punishment during a University of Minnesota Law School appearance in which he also made clear retirement isn't in his near-term plans. The death penalty came up as Scalia described his judicial view that the Constitution is an "enduring" document that shouldn't be open to broad interpretation — while sharing frustration that his colleagues too readily find flexibility in it.

Scalia said death penalty decisions from the court have made it "practically impossible to impose it but we have not formally held it to be unconstitutional." Earlier in his remarks, Scalia said "it wouldn't surprise me if it did" fall, a comment that drew scattered applause in the mostly full, 2,700-seat auditorium.

He said the high court has increasingly made it difficult impose the death penalty. He said rulings have added mitigating circumstances that must be considered or made it impermissible to automatically sentence people to death for certain crimes, such as killing a police officer.

The Supreme Court this month began its latest term and has already heard one death penalty challenge out of Kansas. While that case is limited in scope it was the first high court hearing on death penalty cases since a bitter clash over lethal injection procedures exposed deep divisions among the justices last term. The court intends to consider a case from Florida that questions whether judges, rather than juries, can impose a death sentence, especially when the jury is not unanimous in recommending death.

The conservatives in Texas would lose what's left of their minds, wouldn't they?