Stranglehold 2007

More like sleeperhold.

Since I'm typing here, you can guess that Austin emerged from Ice Storm 2007 (heretofore, IS2K7) unscathed. IS2K7 was the second of two largely overhyped events on my radar screen since the year 2007 began.

On Tuesday morning, I was told there would be snow. I stayed home from work for snow. Something snowlike fell from the sky for five minutes. It stopped. And then there was ice.

It took me, my wife, and two tiny ice scrapers about thirty minutes to get my truck out of this mess so I could get to work on Wednesday. Hardly any of my coworkers showed up, since the roads were still a bit icy. I think I worked about four hours that day.

Most of the ice was melted by Thursday, and Austinites slowly returned to business as usual. IS2K7 is history.

Thursday was the only 8-hour day I worked, last week.

Friday was Confederate Heroes Day [?], an optional state holiday for Texas state employees. So I exercised that option and spent most of the day at the auto shop while my truck was getting new brakes and other routine vehicle maintenance. I thought about states' rights while I waited in the "customer lounge."

The 140-day Texas legislative session began about 15 days ago, with overhyped event of the year #1--a contested race for election of the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives; Republican vs. Republican, with the challenger looking like he had a good chance to unseat the incumbent. It was the most drama I've witnessed on the first day of the legislative session since I've been in the biz, and there was a palpable buzz all around the Capitol that day. The House gallery was packed with spectators. Folks at my office kept their eyes and ears peeled for any news on which candidate was gaining ground: we watched as long as we could on the House cable channel. And we waited and waited as the House members debated for hours just on the method by which they would nominate and vote for the Speaker candidates. At the end of the day, the challenger went down [in flames?], and that seemed to kill the momentum I felt was already building so early on in the session [generally, absolutely nothing happens on the first day or even the first week]. The Capitol complex was a ghost town, the next day. And our office lost all of it's buzz--and maybe we were hungover--not necessarily because folks wanted to see the incumbent Speaker to lose, but maybe because we just liked the idea of a "shake up" at the Capitol. As it turns out, there is still some political fallout that has yet to completely surface, and that should be quite enough drama to fuel the little political soap opera that keeps us entertained while we work many long days and late nights on less sexy legislative matters [e.g. the budget].

In the meantime [as we wait for that fallout], there haven't been many newsworthy goings on with the Lege. So the press has decided to pick up and roll with the story of Ted Nugent's gig at Governor Perry's inaugural ball, at which the Motor City Madman donned a shirt emblazoned with a Confederate battle flag and allegedly spouted some insensitive comments regarding non-English speaking immigrants. The Nuge proudly defends his right to display the rebel flag in shirt form but denies having uttered the alleged insensitive comments. At worst, he may have tried to lobby for crossbows for school children. But critics are still trying to make a big scandal out of Perry associating with a crazy, bow hunting, gun toting, rebel flag wearin' mofo. [I didn't know this, but apparently Rick and Ted are tight bros from way back]. The negative press should fizzle by the end of this month when the Lege starts taking up serious issues.

Personally, I think the zebra-striped cameltoe is way more offensive than the rebel flag getup.