The Radio Only Plays "Texas Fight"

Yes, he bleeds orange. He likes his toast burnt. The eyes of Texas are upon him. He's a true fan all the live long day. He loves to fish so he can hook 'em. Scott Wilson is one hell of a fan.

The Richest Texans

The top 10 and their net worth in billions:

•Alice Walton, Fort Worth $19
•Michael Dell, Austin $16.4
•Dan Duncan, Houston $7.9
•Harold Simmons, Dallas $6.9
•Robert Rowling, Highland Park $6.2
•Robert Bass, Fort Worth $5.5
•Ross Perot, Dallas $4.3
•Ray Hunt, Dallas $4.0
•David Bonderman,Fort Worth $$3.3
•George Mitchell, The Woodlands $3.2


per Forbes magazine

High School Football's Zero Week

The UIL now allows Texas high schools to play a football game one week early and have a bye week during the season. The schools are still limited to playing 10 games unless in the playoffs. To accommodate the early game while still calling the last games of the regular season Week 10, the first week is now called Zero Week. Bureaucrats. You gotta love them.

New Book

On shelves today.

Road Trip #1

Sample beer at the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas. Free tours are offered at 11am and 1:30pm M-F. They make around 175 barrels per day or roughly 15,000 cases. A barrel is 31 gallons. There's not much else to do in Shiner, which is about halfway between San Antonio and Houston in Lavaca County.

Loving County, Texas

Located here [just wait; it'll get there] in West Texas, Loving has a population of 52¹ and only one town, Mentone, with a population of 15¹. The Hispanic population is approximately five or six and the black population got smart and moved out a long time ago. Loving County is known for making Edna Reed Claton Dewees the first elected sheriff in Texas². It is wet, alcohol wise, and pretty damn dry precipitation wise. Directions: you can't get there from here³.

¹2006-2007 Texas Almanac
²wikipedia, so you know it can be believed
³I read it somewhere

I'm Positive Texas Can Become 5 States, Maybe

Once upon a time when Texas looked like this the Texicans put the whup-ass on Generalisimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and Texas became its own country. The smart ones drew up a constitution but the smarter ones realized the republic was saddled with debt and wanted Texas to be part of the United States. But in 1836 the slave population numbered 5000 and the U.S. Congress said, "No way José" to statehood so Texas said, "We'll show you" and ended up with 38,753 slaves per the 1847 census. Now back up just a little to November, 1844, when James K. Polk won the presidential election on the issue of expansion. So then current President John Tyler got Congress to approve the admittance of Texas as a state. It became effective in 1845. Got all that? So anyway, both the Joint Resolution of Annexing Texas and The Ordinance of Annexation contain this language:
New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.
So we can!
But wait. In 1861, when the slave population in Texas was 183,000, Texas seceded from the Union due to the Great War of Northern Aggression only to be readmitted in 1865. Constitutional scholars say the secession effectively forfieted the divide-into-five-state privilege.
So we can't!
But wait. That's just what a bunch of smarty pants say. It's never been challenged in court (where the smarty pants would probably win). So we can!
It's moot. The reason originally intended was to have the possibility of increasing the number of slave states. The only reason to do so now would be to increase Texas' presence in the U.S. Senate. But barring any disaster that would make 9/11 look miniscule, Texans would never divide the state.

Back to the slavery thing. Abraham (no middle name) Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except for the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except for the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Northfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth).
Whew. That wore me out.
The Emancipation Proclamation was signed before Al Gore invented the Internet so news was usually olds. On June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 1800 federal troops and proclaimed the emancipation of the slaves. Over the years the term June 19th has contracted to Juneteenth. It's now a state holiday and is also celebrated in an increasing number of states.