Al Franken, Don Willett, and 'jokes'

The day before yesterday's news broke about Al Franken and Leeann Tweeden, Franken -- in his role as Senate Judiciary Committee member -- was grilling Fifth Circuit Justice nominee Don Willett about his Tweets.  Specifically one Tweet.

Go away, A-Rod. “@FoxNews: California's transgender law allows male high schooler to make girls' softball team http://t.co/hnTrWAaV8g"

— Justice Don Willett (@JusticeWillett) February 14, 2014

You can catch up on the frontstory at this Chron link, where the following is excerpted:

"Do you think it demonstrates good judgment for a man in his late 40s, a sitting Supreme Court justice, to publicly demean and humiliate a 17-year-old girl on Twitter?" asked Minnesota Democrat Al Franken.

"I believe that every child is a gift," Willett answered. "Every child is a blessing... I would never demean or disparage anyone."

Willett, a prolific social media user with more than 104,000 Twitter followers, labored to explain the Tweet. "Go away, A-Rod," he said, was a reference to New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez – nick-named A-Rod – who had just accepted a year-long suspension from Major League Baseball for using steroids.

"It was an A-Rod tweet, not a transgender tweet," Willett said.

Franken questioned why it was accompanied by a Fox News article about Cordova-Goff.

"I think it was a ham-handed attempt at levity, and at comedy," Willett said, acknowledging Franken's pre-Senate career on Saturday Night Live. "Your comedy never falls flat, but mine does, admittedly."

"I don't get the joke," Franken pressed. "Sometimes, when you don't get a joke, it's because it wasn't a joke."

"It was intended as one," Willett said, a smile frozen on his face.

Bold emphasis mine, and the quote from Franken is cringeworthy in light of yesterday' developments regarding Franken's own ... let's call it 'no longer appropriate in this national tipping point moment' sense of humor.

David Sims at The Atlantic explains this.  Again, if you need the stage set, go there.

I was just kidding is often a defense offered onstage by stand-up comedians who have, in some way, pushed past performance into something more threatening or upsetting. When Daniel Tosh heckled an audience member with a menacing monologue about how it’d be “funny” if she “got raped by, like, five guys right now,” he claimed afterwards that he was trying to weaponize the “awful things in the world” by making jokes about them. The joy of comedy, after all, is that you can make light of anything, right? But that defense falls flat when a “joke” is targeted to harass, degrade, or even assault a particular person or group—in such cases, “comedy” becomes an excuse to abuse an imbalanced power dynamic. Franken, with all his years in the comedy community, could lay claim to knowing what was funny and what wasn’t, and could plausibly pressure Tweeden into kissing him as a form of unnecessary “rehearsal.”

[...]

It was meant to be funny has been used as the defense for supposedly ironic racism that more often than not feels like button-pressing that’s meant to be emptily offensive. It’s been used to justify “telling it like it is” in ways that work to silence women. And, of course, it’s been used since time immemorial as cover for “goosing” (or whatever other euphemism you might think of) and grabbing people without their consent. Perhaps Franken’s defense could fall into this category—that he was mocking such casual sexism, that he was just pretending to be a thoughtless pig, perhaps for the benefit of giggling onlookers.

Toxic masculinity was referenced in this space just a few days ago, and I suspect there will be plenty more opportunities to rehash and revisit that in the future.  I'm no Franken supporter; he's been losing me for some time with his votes authorizing war funding and his unlimited support of the state of Israel, and more recently last year when he became a super delegate for Hillary Clinton from a state that went 61% for Bernie Sanders, though he didn't say what he was accused by Berniecrats of saying.  In terms of degree of egregiousness of sexual harassment violations, Al Franken ≠ Donald Trump ≠ Roy Moore, but that's not stopping any conservatives from trending a topic overnight.

Likewise, Democrats who attack Tweeden or employ the ' just joking' defense are nothing but blind partisan hypocritical tribalists.  (Some people there get it; most don't.)

So to summarize: Franken did something bad; Tweeden felt empowered by other women sharing their stories to come out with her complaint after more than ten years of suffering in silence about it; Franken quickly apologized, twice, and called for an ethics investigation; Tweeden accepted his apology and called the partisan diatribes "disgusting".  You can watch it all here.

That ought to be the end of it, except for ... you know.

Trump has stayed silent about Moore but has let fly on his medium of choice about Franken.  Some talking head on CNN said last night that "we have a moral leadership vacuum" in the White House.  That's spot on.  One of the things Barack Obama got right, consistently, was when he said in response to some national tragedy: "That's not who we are."

You will never hear Trump say anything remotely like that.

Franken should not resign.  If he does, then he better be holding the door for Roy Moore and Donald Trump to walk out ahead of him.  We'll take that deal, Mr. President.

Update: This take from DocPhD at First Draft is pretty solid.

What so many people are awkwardly groping for is some sort of “sex crime conversion chart” in which one boob-grab equals two ass-pats or one photo equals three teen accusers and one signed yearbook or something. We have finally started coming to the necessary conclusion that shitty behavior is shitty behavior, but people with myriad agendas want to create a hierarchy out of these behaviors, as if hierarchy itself weren’t the reason these messes exist in the first place.

It doesn’t work that way because it’s not about sex. It’s about power.

Gene Green gone. Can TX-29 do better?

Another little bit of scalding truth you'll never read at Off the Kuff.

Gene Green is one of the worst Democrats in Congress; very conservative and very corrupt, a pairing that you often find together. And he's retiring early. No realistic explanation why, since he's been raising money hand over fist all year. He raised $474,164 so far this year and has a campaign war chest with $1,272,398 as of the September 30 FEC filing deadline. TX-29 is a strongly blue district -- PVI was D+12 in 2015 and is D+19 this year -- and Obama won it in a walk both times. A 77% Hispanic district, it wraps around Houston (north, east and south) and includes much of the Ship Channel area, South Houston and Pasadena. Green has promised to help solve the endemic pollution problem at election time while taking massive bribes from the oil and gas industries the rest of the time and helping push through their agenda. He should have been replaced years ago.

The only Democrat brave enough to take him on this cycle has been progressive activist and public school teacher Hector Morales. Hector has been one of the few progressives challenging an entrenched incumbent conservaDem anywhere in the country, the toughest job in politics (please contribute to his campaign here). When the Republicans, with Green's help, passed a fracking bill last July, we asked him about Green's vote and he told us:

"This should not come as a surprise, as Gene Green is one of the founding members of the Congressional Oil & Gas Caucus along with Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, to name a few. Green was also one of the scarce Democrats that voted in favor of the Keystone Pipeline... Perhaps the Congressman should look no further than the Manchester neighborhood, deep in the heart of the 29th Congressional District, where all the refineries are located. After all, the low-income, heavily Latino community has high rates of childhood leukemia, asthma, and bronchitis, an observation that has been backed up by data from the Environmental Protection Agency and the University of Texas, which found “unacceptable” levels of cancer-causing pollutants in Manchester’s air.

"Gene Green is nothing more than a corporate shill who has gotten away with representing the oil and gas companies while claiming to look after the well-being of the community he has sworn to protect. But with $260,000 worth of campaign contributions in this quarter alone from special interests, what more could you expect?"

As an editor's note, I performed several corrections, mostly of punctuation, to the above and added the embedded links that appear.

It will be worth watching Green to see if he doles out that money to some Democrats (and whether they're mangey Blue Dogs like him or somewhat to the left of that), or charities, or whether he just walks away with it.  Maybe Charles will do a spreadsheet for us.

Here comes more hot water.

The Houston Chronicle called Green "a fixture in the Texas Legislature and Congress for nearly half a century." What a terrible, terrible waste of a seat!

Until now, Green's longevity in city politics helped preserve Houston's status as America's largest Hispanic city without a Hispanic member of the U.S. House. Aware of that status, Green worked assiduously to serve constituent needs through job fairs, immunization drives, and town halls. He also worked to court the city's top Latino activists.

A pretty wretched bunch of opportunists jumped right into the race yesterday, starting with anti-charisma state Senator Sylvia Garcia and state Rep. Armando Walle, both Green disciples who seem to have had advance notice.

I actually think a little higher of both Garcia and Walle than DWT; they're both to the left of Green, though that bar is so low it's about three feet under ground.  Morales' biography might be too wordy for Chuck to get through, but let's give him credit for at least noticing Morales, even though he probably hasn't gotten a press release in his inbox.  DWT has been writing about Morales monthly since last July, as noted in the excerpt above.

Wrapping up the slapping of the Donkeys for this morning, I'll predict that Walle drops out* and re-files for his seat in the Lege before December 11, the last day to do so, and that Sylvia Garcia, not Adrian, ultimately goes to Washington.  Carol Alvarado does not enter this race**; she waits for Senator Sylvia's seat to open and runs for that (a special election perhaps not happening until the spring of 2019; Kuff is already offering his nonspecific speculation).  Clinging like remora to the future Congresswoman Garcia are her staff of neoliberal millennial trust fund babies, seeing a political future for themselves by staying in her orbit.

If I had a vote it would be for Hector Morales.  I just can't count on the citizens of CD-29 to be so enlightened as to send some fresh progressive blood to Congress.  Prove me wrong, please.

*Too easy.  If Charles read this blog he'd have known it, too, but he's reading Campos blogging about Dwight Boykins jacking off in front of everybody (figuratively only).

**Update (11/30): Prediction #2 comes to pass.

The Moore-ons in al-Abama

They are by no means unique or exclusive.  To begin, let's watch as Sharia Christian clerics are reminded by Chester the Molester's wife that they endorsed her husband just six weeks ago.

The wife of embattled Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore sought Monday to draw attention to an August letter from 53 Alabama pastors supporting him in the GOP primary as allegations of sexual misconduct build ahead of next month's special election.

The letter, published on AL.com and highlighted on Kayla Moore's Facebook page, praises the candidate for his “immovable convictions for Biblical principles” and says he suffered “persecution” for his faith by opposing gay marriage as Alabama's chief justice.

“For decades, Roy Moore has been an immovable rock in the culture wars — a bold defender of the ‘little guy,’ a just judge to those who came before his court, a warrior for the unborn child, defender of the sanctity of marriage, and a champion for religious liberty,” the letter reads.

Two of the TaliBaptists did, to their credit, withdraw.

... Tijuanna Adetunji of the Fresh Anointing House of Worship in Montgomery, said she was not contacted about the letter and did not give permission for her name to be used.

"I was not asked about this story or allegations," Adetunji said.

[...]

Pastor Thad Endicott said he was not contacted about the most recent post from Kayla Moore.

"The list that has recently circulated was evidently copied and pasted from the August endorsements without checking to see if I still endorsed Moore." Endicott, pastor at Heritage Baptist Church, asked that his name be removed from the Moore endorsement.

Moore's campaign did not respond to questions related to the letter or why it was posted with the date and identifying information removed. At least one of the pastors listed as supporting Moore is no longer at the church listed on the letter.

Be it the primary, runoff, or general election, these Cotton State churches have listed themselves as unsafe for children.  The percentage of self-appointed disciples of Christ bailing out, mentioned above, is too low but still a good start.  Like their shepherds, the flock is experiencing a wide degree of cognitive dissonance.  Polling results in recent days have Chester down by four and up by ten.

Update: As HuffPo (hat tip Eschaton) notes, the concept of forgiveness for any and all sins is another one of the grand excuses made by Christians for Christians.

Bruce Register, 87, a retiree from Dothan, Ala, said that spiritually, the whole controversy was moot.

“I really don’t think someone of his character would have done that. And if he had done it, it doesn’t matter in God’s eyes because he’d have been forgiven ...”

Meanwhile DC Republicans, more mindful of how this might influence their 2018 prospects, are keeping all options on the table, including the nuclear one.

Alabama has been right there alongside Mississippi as the worst of these United States for several generations now.  The plague of ignorance has spread, however, and can no longer be contained.

Whatever happens -- whether Moore is elected or not, seated in the Senate or expelled in a vote by his peers -- is of little consequence at this point.  Oh, Democrats may be able to make political hay of it in 2018, but they would fare better if they did not have their own Harvey Weinstein/Kevin Spacey/Hollywood, etc. problems to try to distract from.

The takeaway is that this scourge is not confined to the Heart of Dixie.  It's a feature of Christian extremism, and we in Texas and much of the rest of the country have our own terrorist cells.  They're stronger in the South, but no region of the country is immune.

Amidst shocking allegations that Roy Moore pursued relationships with girls ranging in age from 14-18 years old when he was in his 30s, a new poll shows that 37% of evangelicals are “more likely” to vote for Moore, while another 34% say that these allegations make “no difference.” Some of his supporters have upped the ante by saying that even if the allegations are proven true, they won’t think Moore did anything wrong because they didn’t actually have sex and “he was single” at the time.

[...]

Incredulous observers won’t be able to make sense of Moore’s supporters while seeing the allegations only in terms of inappropriate behavior, or even alleged statutory rape. They will miss the point that the problem is actually far more insidious; a feature, not a bug of this subculture.

The allegations are being read by Moore supporters through a lens shaped by the courtship-purity movement promoted by the Biblical Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements widely influential in Christian homeschooling circles. ...

As Kathryn Brightbill tweeted: “It’s not a southern problem, it’s a fundamentalist problem. Girls who are 14 are seen as potential relationship material.”

Forget for just a moment about Roy Moore and Alabama and Dan Patrick and Texas and all the rest of the sanctimonious Christian hypocrites and places one could name, and ponder: Why did the majority of white women vote for Trump, when almost no black women or Latinas did so?  (Clue: it wasn't the Russians, or Facebook, or even the damned liberal media.)  The same question holds for Wendy Davis in 2014; how does the champion of women's reproductive rights, under assault like no other in this day, get 32% of the white women's vote running against Greg Abbott?

It is not nearly all the fault of these women, to be certain; most of them were simply voting the way their husbands told them to.  Similarly, it would be too convenient to heap all the blame on the Jesus Freaks, or even the demise of the Fairness Doctrine that gave us Rush Limbaugh in 1988 and Fox News in 1996, which has poisoned the minds of people living in Alabama and rural Texas and elsewhere, convincing them that voting for a child-molesting Republican is better than voting for a Democrat.  Even that is a bit of a cop-out.

I would submit that there is a longstanding culture of toxic masculinity in this country that only a majority electorate of people of color, and most specifically women of color, can deliver us from the evil thereof.  Testosterone poisoning pervades the rationale for war, corporate competition (take note of the battlefield jargon in your memos and email) and in recreational activities, notably bloodsport like football and WWF.  It's quite obviously behind the menace of rape culture and the unspoken, unreported sexual abuse contagion that's finally being outed all across the nation.

It's at the root of homophobia, bullying, and gun violence.

This is an extremely complex issue with so many layers going back thousands and thousands of years through history and evolution. There is no right answer to solving it and I don't think there ever will be. Education is a powerful tool, teaching boys to be kind and not violent is the step in the right direction.

Too often we define masculine strength by who can blow away the most people, who can flex the most muscle, who can impose their will and inflict the most damage. But this cheapens the real definition of strength and toughness. We respect the toughness of firefighters who rush into burning buildings when others are rushing out.

Police officers and first responders who put their lives on the line, and the men and women of the armed services who show courage under fire, do so not because they're out to prove something but because they steel themselves in the face of danger and face down their fears in service to others. For the same reason, we should respect the toughness and strength of men who challenge the myth that being a real man requires putting up a false front, disrespecting others, and engaging in violent and self-destructing behavior.

Cultures take a very long time to fix.  Maybe we've taken a few halting steps down that road to recovery in recent days.  There will be some bumps, and those who fear change will push back and fight back.  It's always been that way.

Change we must, and there's no time to waste.

Update: "Methinks thou doth Brotest too much".

The Weekly Wrangle

With this week's lefty blog post and news roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance hopes that the victories won by a broad and diverse slate of Democrats around the country last Tuesday -- and with the special election for the seat in the US Senate representing Alabama starting to turn their way -- is the start of something promising.

Although there is still some close-mindedness and hypocrisy to overcome.

Off the Kuff analyzed the Houston-area election results from last week.

SocraticGadfly talked about Veterans Day and stupid wars in light of the World War I centennial.

Democrats turned it up, out, and on in last Tuesday's elections, wrote PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

Texas Freedom Network's Insider blog declares that it's long past time for a Mexican American textbook and curriculum in our state's public schools.

In his collection of criminal justice news, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast points to the Mother Jones piece that indicates TDCJ spokesperson Jason Clark might not be telling the truth about the Beaumont-area prison that flooded during Harvey.

The "new" Music City Mall in Lewisville addresses its planned installation of a Ten Commandments monument, reports the Texan Journal.

The tenth annual green (not Green) Holiday Party in Austin is announced by Texas Vox.

Neil at All People Have Value said folks should vote for Elizabeth Santos in the HISD District 1 runoff on Saturday, December 9. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

=======================

And from other blogs and news sources ...

An explosive account by Olivia Messer in The Daily Beast reveals the men in the Texas Legislature behaving badly toward women.  It's not the latest breaking news in the ongoing and unreported-but never-to-be-forgotten incidents of sexual harassment in the workplace; only the most statewide.  RG Ratcliffe at Burkablog knows it's a long and sordid tradition at the Capitol.

Public records researched by Melissa del Bosque at the Texas Observer disclose the planned route of the proposed southern border wall.  Fifteen segments would bisect three wildlife areas in the RGV, and put more homes and structures in jeopardy than previously known.

DBC Green blog also analyzes the election results from last Tuesday, and understands -- more clearly than most -- that they weren't the changes establishment Democrats could believe in.

(The election outcomes) demonstrated amply that 1) mainstream Democratic candidates and strategies don't get it done; 2) progressive and populist ideas and candidates win, and 3) people will turn out mostly to express their utter revulsion at our alleged president, not because they have any great love for—or knowledge of—the candidates.

Paradise in Hell is more than ready to draw a line on automatic weapons.

The Texas Living Waters Project is not afraid to use contested case hearings to fight for our state's rivers and bays.

Juanita Jean at The World's Most Famous Beauty Salon needs your help to get mail ballots for 2018 to people who need them, especially in counties affected by Harvey.

Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher grapples with the revelations about Louis CK.

Monica Roberts at TransGriot documents the history of transgender candidates running for legislative offices.

And Harry Hamid crossed a street yesterday.

Sunday Funnies

Democrats turned it up

Voters delivered their first forceful rebuke of President Trump and his party on Tuesday night, with Democrats exploiting Trump’s deep unpopularity to capture the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey and make significant inroads into suburban communities that once favored the Republican Party.

Gillespie, the former RNC chair and Bush-ite, went for the Trump faction without invoking Trump's name.  The Commonwealth wasn't going for it.  The race was close but not as close as the polling predicted.  Gillespie is a two-time loser after getting eked out by Sen. Mark Warner in 2014.

Northam isn't at all progressive, and almost fumbled this win away in the closing days, so to exceed polling expectations reveals a superior ground game.  In other neoliberal news, Goldman Sachs replaced Fat Bastard.

In New Jersey, Philip D. Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, won the governorship, according to The Associated Press, by a vast margin that brought an unceremonious end to Gov. Chris Christie’s tumultuous tenure.

In both Virginia and New Jersey, voters rebuffed a wave of provocative ads linking immigration and crime, hinting at the limitations of hard-edge tactics in the sort of affluent and heavily suburban states that are pivotal in next year’s midterm elections.

The blue team extended the gains down the ballot in Virginia.

Democrats won legislative races across the Old Dominion, putting control of the House of Delegates—not generally expected to be up for grabs—within Democratic grasp. Bob Marshall, a particularly outspoken anti-LGBT conservative, was defeated by Danica Roem, who becomes the first openly transgender legislator in state and U.S. history.

The guy that introduced a bill that would allow anyone who held a Virginia state license to be able to refuse service, on moral or religious grounds, to an LGBT person ... was defeated by a trans person.  By ten points.  I believe that's called karma.

Once more from the NYT.

Representative Scott Taylor, a Republican from Virginia Beach, said he considered the Democratic sweep in Virginia a repudiation of the White House. He faulted Trump’s “divisive rhetoric” for propelling the party to defeat, and said he believed traditionally Republican-leaning voters contributed to Northam’s margin of victory.

“I do believe that this is a referendum on this administration,” Mr. Taylor said of the elections. “Democrats turned out tonight ... "

... and in many other states.  The diversity of those elected was heartening.

A Sikh man was elected mayor of Hoboken.
An African-American woman was elected mayor of Charlotte
A trans woman was elected as a state rep in VA
An African-American man was elected mayor of Helena MT

I'm so down with this America

— Andy Lewis (@andyblewis) November 8, 2017

Seattle also elected their first female mayor since the 1920s, a lesbian.  And this:

A candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates whose fiancé was shot and killed on live TV ran and won on gun violence prevention.https://t.co/74vn4y79Q2

— CAP Action Guns (@CAPActionGuns) November 8, 2017

Houston and Texas' ballot initiatives passed with flying colors.  There'll be a runoff in my HCC trustee race between the Republican-voting auto broker, Gene Pack, and my choice, Pretta VanDible Stallworth.  If you want more on the local angle you probably know where to find it.  Of greatest significance to me, hyper-locally, is the result in The Woodlands Township Board of Directors, Place 7, which was won by Carol Stromatt over incumbent Laura Fillault.  Here's the report:

Stromatt, who fended off a fake campaign flier falsely attributed to her and a barrage of robocalls from the Texas Right to Life PAC during the last week of the race, said she credited her victory to "integrity, hard work, [and] people who care about this community."

[...]

Fillault, who lost by 312 votes, was emotional after the loss and refused to comment for this article. The incumbent was ousted from office after serving only one term. Fillault had drawn unwelcome attention to herself in the past several months after posting a series of questionable Tweets on her Twitter account, using foul and abusive language towards other Twitter users.

The Woodlands, for anyone unfamiliar, is baboon's-ass red.  The Montgomery County Democratic Party lists Stromatt as a precinct chair.  She won 53-47 over the deranged Republican who drew support from MQS and the statewide anti-choice lunatics who played the baby-killing card.

That is yuge.

Lupe Valdez 'approached' to run for governor

She's 'listening'.

Four-term Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez is considering challenging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott next November. If she throws her hat in the ring, she'll be the first major Democratic contender for the governor's mansion in 2018. If Valdez wins, she'll be Texas' third female governor, first Hispanic governor and first LGBTQ governor.

"Too much of one thing corrupts, and I'm a strong believer in a two-party system," Valdez, who said she's in the "exploratory process" of planning a run, told the Texas Tribune. "I'm hoping that enough people are seeing that too much one-sided is not healthy for Texas."

She'd be a lifesaver for the Donks if she chooses to run -- she's got a free shot; wouldn't have to give up being sheriff* -- and she checks all the 'identity politics' boxes.  Except as a law and order Democrat, she's likely not all that progressive.  But she would motivate their core constituencies to get to the polls, and is candidly the only person with a real shot at upsetting Governor Helen Wheels.

More from the TexTrib.

Abbott and Valdez have a history. In 2015, they clashed over her department's policy regarding compliance with federal immigration authorities — an issue that later came up in Travis County, which includes the state capital of Austin. Those debates drove support behind the "sanctuary cities" bill that Abbott signed into law earlier this year. (That law is currently the subject of a legal challenge working its way through the courts.)

[...]

The filing period for next year's elections opens Saturday and ends a month later.

It's nut-cutting time and Valdez holds the clippers.  If she enters the race, watch for the landslide of D filers right behind her.  She'd be the rising tide for all of their respective boats.  Valdez thus has the whole world -- not mention the fate of Texas -- in her hands.

* The srikethrough-as-correction reflects the fact that county officials in Texas, unlike state senators like Sylvia Garcia, must 'resign to run' for another office under state law.

The Weekly Wrangle

With the weekly blog post and lefty news roundup, the Texas Progressive Alliance really encourages you to cast a ballot tomorrow -- because with turnout like this, your vote is going to carry a lot more weight than usual.

Off the Kuff looks at the third quarter campaign finance reports for Texas Democratic Congressional candidates.

Socratic Gadfly offers his detailed take about the bombshell Donna Brazile dropped on the Democratic Party.

An Astros fan almost since birth, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs posts his 56-year remembrance of growing up with the team and celebrating their first World Series championship.  And Houstonia has pictures of the victory parade, which 700,000 were predicted to attend, but officials estimated a million people showed up.

 Texas Vox patiently explains the difference between "weather" and "climate".

The TSTA Blog chastises educators who punish flag protesters.

jobsanger has the charts and explanations for the massive Latina pay and gender gap.

Jeff Balke eulogizes the Houston Press.

The Lewisville Texan Journal has news about that city's Vista Ridge Mall being acquired and repurposed as a live entertainment venue 7 nights a week (and still a mall).

Neil at All People Have Value attended a rally in Houston to call for the release of 10-year-old Rosa Maria Hernandez.  Rosa was seized by ICE lowlifes as she recovered from major surgery in Corpus Christi.  Thankfully the pressure on this issue for all over the country made a difference and Rosa has since been freed. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

===========================

In other Texas news (and blog posts), just hours after the mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Think Progress reports that Attorney General Ken Paxton was on Fox News suggesting that more people bring their guns to church.

(Why can't Texas Democrats find anyone to challenge this guy?)

Energy Secretary Rick Perry made the ludicrous claim that fossil fuels were the key to ending sexual assault in Africa.  The Sierra Club called for him to resign "before he causes any more damage".

Grits for Breakfast lists six states that Texas should emulate when it comes to criminal justice reform and associated solutions.

Joseph Fanelli at the Houston Press saw Russian trolls behind both sides of a protest at an Islamic Center in downtown H-Town.

The Somervell County Salon finds a few recent examples of the church and the state collaborating on a few things, and complaining about it when they can't.  Rebuild that wall!

Juanita Jean at the World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon has had enough of John Kelly.

Therese Odell at Foolish Watcher is all about Indictment Day.

Shea Serrano at The Ringer finally gets the allure of baseball.

The Current introduces us to the San Antonio Satan Fish.

And BeyondBones gives the science on vampires.

Sunday Fall Back Funnies

Seeing the Forest:

Voter suppression, coherent message telling voters how their lives will be better, authenticity so they know you mean it, listening to and appealing to all components and regions of the traditional Dem coalition, outreach to new voters, keeping the other side from rigging things like voting machines and voter registration lists and illegal donations and activities and interference like Russia and Comey, and then delivering for your constituencies in order to help the constituencies AND the next candidate who runs. (Thanks, Obama.)

A Hollywood ending

So glad that I lived long enough to see it.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FRANCHISE HISTORY, THE #ASTROS ARE #WORLDSERIES CHAMPIONS! #EARNEDHISTORY pic.twitter.com/lTo9MNqzVR

— Houston Astros (@astros) November 2, 2017

In one of the most evenly matched, hard-fought and thrilling World Series of all time, it's fitting that fans were treated to a winner-takes-all Game 7.

In the end, it's Houston that gets to celebrate.

The Astros -- whose first season was in 1962 -- are World Series champions for the first time in franchise history, defeating the Dodgers 5-1 in Game 7 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and completing a Fall Classic for the ages.

"You know what, Houston?" Astros manager A.J. Hinch said in an interview on the FOX broadcast. "You're a championship city."

We knew that already, but it's nice to have bragging rights.

In January of 1962 I was a kindergartener.  About a hundred miles to the west, six men fired pistols into the dirt, less than five miles from where I live today.

That summer the Houston Colt .45s lost 96 games, completing their inaugural season 8th in a ten-team National League, 36.5 behind the San Francisco Giants, who won 103 but still finished in a tie with their longtime rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers.  A three-game playoff for the pennant was won by San Fran, which became the first NL champion in the 162-game/season era.

The Giants, led by Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, and Gaylord Perry, and with two Alou brothers in the outfield, lost the 1962 World Series to the New York Yankees (Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Tony Kubek, Joe Pepitone, and Jim Bouton, among others) in seven games.

Baseball history has a discernible symmetry.

That World Series of '62 was ending just as the 13 days of the Cuban missile crisis was beginning.  Mi esposa futura and her familia had emigrated from the island nation, illegally by the new rules of Fidel Castro's government, the year before (story here).  I was a first-grader in Mrs. Rafferty's class at Averill Elementary in Beaumont, Texas.  Our school held bomb drills, where we would take cover under our desks.  As I look back on it now, this must have been a ploy to calm children about the current events.  Surely our teachers were smart enough to understand the futility of hiding under a school desk in the event of nuclear attack.

In light of recent developments in our country's relations with North Korea, it's apparent that history at large also has some parallels.

The Astros' -- err, Colt .45s' best player in '62 was probably Bob Aspromonte, who began his career with his hometown Brooklyn Dodgers.  Their best pitcher, Bobby Shantz.  A friend of mine in Ambler, PA, where Shantz lives, reports that in his varied capacities as a municipal employee in that city, used to read Shantz's meter (gas, I presume).

The team began play in a rickety old stadium constructed on the northwest corner of the vast expanse of land -- most if not all of it belonging to R. E. "Bob" Smith -- that today incorporates NRG Stadium and the now-decrepit Astrodome.  If you drive north on Kirby between the Loop and Main and pause a bit before you reach the stoplight at La Concha (south of where the Holiday Inn sits to your right) and take a glance at the parking lot, you'll see a lightpost that is rumored to be the marker for home plate at Colt Stadium.

Tickets were pretty cheap and easy to come by in those early years.

In 1964, the year my kid sister was born, the team renamed itself Astros, after the country's budding space program, and opened the Dome.  Nolan Ryan once said that he would drive up from Alvin to stare at the giant hole in the ground as it was being constructed and wonder how baseball was going to be played in it.

By the time I was eight or ten, my Dad would drive us over for a game or two each year.  I was an Astros Buddy (Lee May).  I recall a few late night drives home after games.  Dad was a real fan to make that commute on a weeknight when he had to be at work at 7 the next morning.

One great memory of a game we attended in the late '60's was against the Cincinnati Reds and Pete Rose and Johnny Bench and all those great Big Red Machinists.  We had box seats down on the third base side, and a man who was the spitting image of Sergeant Vince Carter from 'Gomer Pyle USMC' -- right down to the tight square crew cut, wide eyes, flared nostrils -- was sitting behind us.  He was mostly quiet throughout the game, but when Rose came to the plate and crouched in that signature batting stance of his, Sgt. Carter would start screaming things like, "STAND UP, PETE! YOU'RE A BIG BOY!" and such as that.

I can't remember who won the game but my family laughed about that for years after.

Anyway, and to fast forward this reminiscence, when we married and moved away from Beaumont in the mid-'80's as my newspaper career began, there was no Astros baseball televised in places like Plainview and Midland -- cable's reach was weak then -- so I lost track of my Astros fandom and became more of a fan of the game (no particular team).  But when we moved back to Houston in '93 from St. Pete, Florida, my specific request to my wife as she searched for an apartment was that we be as close to the Astrodome as possible so I could go see games often.  She picked out a cute little loft on Holly Hall, which was the east feeder into what was then still called Astrodomain parking.  I could walk to the ticket office in twenty minutes.  Those were fun times; Killer Bs, Randy Johnson, so on.  Once the 'Stros abandoned the Dome for Enron Field/Minute Maid Park in 2000 I still managed to jump the Metrorail and get downtown for a handful of games until recent years, when my health has precluded it.  So watching these postseason games on television has, as you can probably sympathize, been stressful.  That brings us to last night.

Fortunately for emotionally worn-out fans, Wednesday's game didn't have the drastic ups and downs of Game 2 and Game 5 (or the complete downer of Game 6).

And helping calm the storm he caused, the Astros' 33-year-old Cuban rookie first baseman tipped his helmet on his initial at-bat to Yu Darvish, who proved to be the Dodgers' undoing in Game 7.

And the outcome wasn't in serious doubt, as the home team -- I know, technically they were the visitors last night -- salted it away early.  As nice as it was to see the Astros win their first championship, it was a little sweeter to watch All Star shortstop Carlos Correa take a knee and propose to his girlfriend, former Miss Texas Daniella Rodriguez.  I think she said yes based on their body language; there was a lot of noise and I couldn't hear for certain.

The Angelenos represent, to some, the Democrats: California, Dodger blue, Hollywood, liberals, you know.  The Astros?  Republicans: Texas, the two presidents Bush, country music.  So perhaps there are quite a lot of folks outside the state sneering at the Astros' good fortune and tremendous skills this morning.  All I know is that the Sports Illustrated cover jinx is as dead as a doornail.

The curse dates all the way back to Sports Illustrated's first issue, Aug. 16, 1954. The cover featured Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves. Shortly after the cover came out, the Braves had a nine-game winning streak broken ... along with Mathews' hand (he missed a week's worth of games with the injury).

Since then, the jinx has struck the likes of Super Bowl losers, Olympic non-medalists and knocked out boxers for the past seven decades.

No more.

Not only did the Astros win the World Series as predicted, but the issue's cover boy – George Springer – ended up crushing five home runs and winning the Series MVP. (The day the cover was released, Springer struck out three times as the Astros were shut out at home to the Braves.)

Maybe the jinx lives on if you're a Dodgers fan, however.  The August 22, 2017 cover:

When I was a kid, my Dad used to time his vacation every year in October for when the World Series was to be played (it was all day games then).  I expect he was as happy and relieved as I am, watching the game wherever he is.

Update: Glenn Smith at The Rag Blog has many similar memories ... and observations.

Scattershooting low turnout

It's safe to disregard Charles' deep-in-the-weeds spreadsheet mumbling about local turnout and go to the Chronicle (!) for the bottom line.

The latest early voting numbers in Texas show just 119,000 voters our of 9.8 million in the 15 largest counties have sent in ballots either by mail or voted at early voting locations over the first seven days of voting.

Two years ago, in a similar non-presidential election cycle, 210,000 through the first seven days of early voting in those constitutional ballot measures.

In Harris County, 29,000 people have voted out of 2.2 million people according to the Texas Secretary of State's Office. Two years ago after the first seven days of voting, 82,000 had voted out of 2.1 million registered voters.

My Harris County spreadsheet from Stan "Fire" Stanart shows 37.6K EV and mailed ballots as of last night.  Even a non-math major from a non-Catholic school can see that we -- not the royal 'we', as in 'Democrats' (pointedly excluding progressive Democrats, mind you) or 'Astros', but we Texans, or maybe just us Texans who care about civics -- are seeing around a one-tenth of one percent turnout after the first week of early voting, with five more days (two in the can) and election day to go, here in H-Town and across the state.

The only word for that is pathetic.

So it's time to ponder what might happen if some or all of Houston's bond issues fail.  The consequences of the pension reform proposition ('A') have been widely fear-mongered by Mayor Turner, and the Republicans in the Lege have succumbed to it, so I see little to no chance of that result causing widespread panic across town.  My barometer of vox populi, my Nextdoor neighbors (Westbury, Willowbend, Meyerland) seem heavily inclined to vote against the rest, which happens to be the conservative position.  Not a good outcome for Turner's policy or politics, but not cataclysmic.  The bond lawyers would have a less-Merry Christmas, and the mayor and council can probably find a way to shuffle incoming Harvey funds around where they think they need them.

So we'll see.  Update: The Chron's Lisa Falkenberg seems a little nervous about Prop A, and pulls out the pom-poms to push voters to support it.  If there is a quantifiable reason -- not some gut feeling based on ghastly low turnout -- that she would be worried enough about to opine in pleading fashion, then the city is in deep (Harvey-related contaminated) silt.

I need to blog about the Russians; that's coming.

Happy Halloween