The Valley doesn’t need a new addiction
So some of our elected officials in the Texas Legislature would like to give Texans the opportunity to vote in November on whether or not sports gambling should be legalized in the Lone Star State.
So some of our elected officials in the Texas Legislature would like to give Texans the opportunity to vote in November on whether or not sports gambling should be legalized in the Lone Star State.
One of my brothers is a master of irony. After the president had finished his talk, he (John) called me to opine (tongue in cheek) that we’d just heard the best speech since the Gettysburg Address. I responded, “Yes, she did rather well, didn’t she.” Sarah Huckabee had, in fact, given the best Republican response I could remember ever hearing. Biden’s speech, however, had been a disaster. He’d tried to make it sound like the economy was chugging along fine (even as about every Internet company had just finished announcing layoffs totaling many thousands). Even Disney was dumping tons of workers. He touted the low unemployment rate and modest reduction in the rate of inflation. The unemployment figures, however, result from people receiving government benefits and no longer looking for work. The number of employed workers (the real measure of the economy) is down millions from what it was under Trump.
Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a disaster declaration for Texas counties affected by the early February ice storm and is seeking a federal declaration as well for areas in Southeast Texas affected by rare January tornadoes. The ice storm caused considerable damage to property and power outages in the affected areas. The declaration for ice-storm damaged counties includes Denton, Hays, Henderson, Milam, Smith, Travis and Williamson counties.
Like beauty, poverty is often in the eye of the beholder. The story is told of a father of a wealthy family who took his son on a trip to the country to show him how poor people can be. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. Upon their return, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?” “It was great, Dad.” “Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked. “Oh yeah,” said the son. “So what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father. The son answered: “I saw that we have one dog, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden, and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden, and they have stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard, and they have the whole horizon.
It’s an old line: “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”
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Pharr, TX 78577