Lets start off on our weekend playtime with South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace who took her butt to the Prayer Breakfast and let it be known what a major sacrifice she was making to be there.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace tells audience she declined sex this morning to show up at a prayer breakfast: pic.twitter.com/8wwE2lxIMT

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 27, 2023

Yeah, she said that:

Said Mace: “When I woke up this morning at 7, I was getting picked up at 7:45. Patrick, my fiancé, tried to pull me by my waist over this morning in bed and I was like, ‘No, baby, we don’t got time for that this morning. I got to get to the prayer breakfast and I got to be on time.’”

We’ll pray for ya, Honey. Ya gotta admit that prayer breakfast stuff works pretty good for that sin of fornicating.

And to add to the inappropriate behavior scorecard …

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) “cursed out a group of Senate pages late Wednesday night in the Capitol,” Punchbowl News reports.

“Van Orden, a freshman, was giving a tour for several dozen visitors around midnight when he happened upon Senate pages lying on the floor of the Rotunda, taking photos of the dome.”

“Van Orden cursed out the pages, who are in their last week of service, calling them ‘lazy shits’ and told them to ‘get the f*** up’ off the floor.”

Well, come to find out, there was lotsa alcohol being consumed in Orden’s office prior to the incident.  I’m shocked, just shocked I tell you.

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Yep, I saw it.  You can see it, too.

Okay, so here’s what happened.  They lost the wifi connection and he’s buffering.

P.S.- the guys’ eyes behind him are hysterical.  They have no idea what to do.  Let’s say Albania attacks the US and these guys are in charge.  Holy crap.

When thinking of politics I often think of analogies. One of the things I noticed on my cruise was that there were a lot of jackasses on the cruise. They were rude to the staff. They were abusive to employees and people on shore. They were every description of the ugly American you could think of.  I have no idea if they were conservative or liberal. It would make life easier to assume they were conservative, but I have no way of verifying that.

In looking at the lyrics for Jason Aldean’s song “Try that in a Small Town” you can see the subtle nods towards racism. When looking at the video you can’t avoid the subtle nods for racism. Left vs. Right is the main fault line everyone focuses on, but big town vs. small town is another fault line. There are others. Honest vs. Dishonest. Asshole vs, Kind. Narcissist vs. Empathetic. America has always been a collection fault lines and separations. Essentially we have made it through by standing with people we have common cause with even if we have other areas where we disagree. As much as the overt racism and sexism bothers me, there was something else I noticed immediately.

“Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it’s cool, well, act a fool if ya like.”

I hate to be the “nobody is talking about” guy, but there is an image inherent here about big city life. I’m sure this is what people in small towns believe. It’s only been shoved down their throats for decades. Hell, the 2017 inaugural address was titled “American Carnage”. It was offensive on any number of levels, but more offensive to me as a writer. It was like a sixth grade thought experiment where the winner got his/her dystopian essay read on national television.

The biggest fault line dividing America today is fact vs. fiction. Aldean is telling a terrific story here. You could probably picture Gotham from all of those Batman movies where everyone was afraid to go outside and crime was just around the corner. SNL had a sketch years ago where they talked about someone in New York getting mugged every thirty seconds. So, they just made it the same guy. Chicago, Portland, New York, and Los Angeles are all billed as hell on earth. Yet, crime statistics per capita would tell you that they are statistically more safe than traditional red areas.

Where does this fiction get us? Well, it gets a huge divide in our politics as rural areas vote red and urban areas vote blue. Since our constitution skews towards real estate and not people it means that these small towns are over represented in Austin, Washington, or your own state. Add in a little gerrymandering and the story keeps perpetuating itself. Only criminals and dead beats live in the city. Good people live in small towns. This isn’t left vs. right anymore. It is fiction vs. non-fiction. Certainly the picture they paint of big city life is frightening, but it is about as true as a dystopian novel.

A&M is no longer that little ol’ ag school of yesteryear when just a little hazing of “fish” in the Corps or building gigantic homecoming bonfires were all in a day’s curriculum on campus in College Station.  The 12th Man, which helped the football team win all those games, and the lifelong camaraderie that made you an Aggie for life is now being overshadowed as the university is now saying the quiet part out loud – that it’s funded and controlled by a bunch of pot-bellied bigots who believe that only white guys should be in charge and only strict compliance to the party line will keep you enrolled or working for A&M.  Overstated?  Hardly.  A&M is now openly censuring and threatening any academic who strays out of line, speaks a word of criticism of a state official or teaches the “wrong” history in class.

Case in point is that of Joy Alonzo, a respected opioid expert and A&M professor.  A deeply experienced and award winning pharmacist, Alonzo has brought millions of dollars in research grants to the university and is an expert in opioids, teaching the use of Narcan and other treatments to those addicted.  This last spring she gave a guest lecture at UTMB about opioids in Galveston, but before she could drive back to College Station, she had been reported for criticizing Dan Patrick.  From there the story reads like something out of the 1930s Germany where academics and intellectuals were silenced for saying the wrong things.  Within two hours, A&M Chancellor John Sharp was communicating with Patrick and his chief of staff.  Alonzo was immediately suspended, pending an investigation.  Alonzo was terrified.

Among his communications about the complaint, Sharp sent this email to Patrick’s office: “Joy Alonzo has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation re firing her. shud [sic] be finished by end of week.”  –  signed “jsharp.”  Within another couple of hours, UTMB leaders sent an email to its students saying that Alonzo’s comments “about Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and his role in the opioid crisis did not represent the opinion of the university.”  The email included a formal censure of Alonzo, even though they didn’t even know specifically what the hell she had even said.

Here’s where the story gets worse, if that’s possible.  Alonzo was reported by a well-connected mole in the classroom who happened to be a daughter of Texas land commissioner Dawn Buckingham, a long-time Patrick ally, and a freshman med student at UTMB who attended the lecture.  Patrick had endorsed Buckingham’s campaign, and she is also close to Sharp and attended his wedding.  You know exactly what happened.  Daughter called Mom, Mom called Patrick, Patrick called Sharp and the fire was lit.  Within hours Alonzo was suspended and threatened with firing by Sharp who was kowtowing to Patrick.

Since the investigation turned up NO ONE who could actually testify as to any wrongdoing, Alonzo ultimately kept her job (I certainly hope she’s looking for another) and is back to work at A&M, but the irreparable damage is done.  The infuriating thing about this entire sorry episode is that no one even knows exactly what Alonzo said that was so offensive.  Other students couldn’t remember anything except a vague reference to Patrick’s office.  The only clue is in Alonzo’s lecture slides that correctly stated that the state legislature, rather than funding opioid treatment programs, legislated stronger criminal charges for those selling the drug.  UTMB is just as culpable in this circus as A&M since it fired off the student email and censure of Alonso ON THE SAME DAY the complaint was filed and before any investigation was completed.

Add this story to the one about Kathleen McElroy, the UT professor of journalism who was recently hired to resurrect the A&M journalism program.  McElroy is an A&M alum.  Previously mentioned pot-bellied redneck alums found out about her hiring (she’s African American and had dared to have a job as an editor who wrote about diversity at the NYTimes) and raised so much hell about her hiring that the university actually reneged on it’s offer of a five-year tenured position, changing it several times, ending up with a one-year untenured position.  Since she is already a tenured professor at UT, she wisely rejected the offer.  The president of A&M and the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences ended up resigning over the sordid incident (not the hiring, but the reneging).

There is most certainly something rotten in College Station, and I’m not talking about overripe fruit in the cafeteria. A&M has been taken over (again) by hate filled racists and radicals trying to repeal the 20th Century and return the college to the bad old days.

“Sieg Heil!”  Fits better now than the quaint “Gig ’em Aggies!”.

Something happened today that triggered strong feelings for me and some other people I know. Some of them are avid readers here, so I need to tread lightly when mentioning this person. Suffice it to say, he had been progressive and something happened. I’m not a psychologist or a licensed professional counselor. I have a mere masters in school counseling. So, I can only guess what happened. Moreover, I’m not even sure it matters in the grand scheme of things.

Ostensibly, he said some very hurtful things to a friend of ours. Again, no details are needed. I saw him on the golf course today and said hello. We talked for a few minutes and exchanged pleasantries and that was the full conversation. I certainly didn’t seek him out. I’ve barely thought about him in several years. In a private conversation with one of the people more intimately involved in the situation I came upon something. It is something I discovered a few years ago and it has changed my life immensely.

Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves. It has nothing to do with the person being forgiven. They can seek forgiveness or not on their own time. Forgiveness is about us letting go of the anger, hurt, and pain. It is about us driving that person out of our lives. People often talk about the difference between forgiving and forgetting. I never forget. What ends up happening is that whatever the source of that anger and pain over being hurt is released. I allow myself to set it free. It’s gone.

Certainly, I get much of this from my own background and education. However, this is not necessarily a religious thing. It certainly can be, but it doesn’t have to be. It is more about mental health than anything else. When I think of the people in my life who are hateful, vindictive, and bigoted it just makes me incredibly sad. What must someone have gone through to carry all of that with them? I certainly don’t seek them out. I have no time or inclination to try to reform people like that. When I run into them I try to be as gracious and cordial as possible. After all, many of them feel glee when they are allowed to ruin your day with their crap.

Hate feeds hate. For years, we have been told we need to fight fire with fire. I steadfastly refuse. When doing this you become that which you hate. Certainly the occasional joke at someone’s expense is fine. We certainly should feel free to laugh at idiots when we encounter them. However, I am not suppressing my joy and love just to give someone that which they probably crave anyway. They want our outrage. They want our anger. They want our derision. Let’s not give it to them. Whatever few undecided folks are still left need a clear choice between hope and love and hate and derision. It can’t be a choice between two sides that hate each other. That’s not really a choice at all. It must be a choice between community and love on one side and narcissism on the other.