Although I’ve never been deer hunting – well, that isn’t exactly true. I once sat in a blind for hours watching an empty field – I found this weekend’s story by Tim Eaton as a fascinating look at the big bucks of Big Bucks.

In the world of trout fishing, which I do, there has been an ongoing debate for years over whether it is best to protect wild native species or stock rivers with farm-raised trout, also known as hatchery trout. Overall, it’s not much of an issue here, because most of the trout that are stocked do not survive our warm summer months. The trout debate is fought out in places like Colorado, Idaho and Montana or New England.

Here in Texas, the brawl is over deer. What Eaton discovered was a battle among high dollar trophy hunting operations. We’re not talking those little road-kill deer. This is about deer that have been bred to have horns so massive that they have trouble holding up their heads. But is it a trophy if it is raised in a pen, and what is the environmental impact in farm raised deer? I’ll let Eaton explain.

Now, some updates on boys acting badly.

 

The list has to start with this update on Attorney General Ken Paxton. A Collin County grand jury started its own investigation of Paxton’s alleged securities violations last week when the District Attorney Greg Willis, a Paxton friend and former business partner, refused to act. There’s nothing like a runaway grand jury to put a district attorney into action. Willis officially requested the Texas Rangers to investigate the allegations that Paxton failed to properly register as a securities dealer.

On another front, Representative Jonathan Stickland late in the week knocked a couple of bills off the local calendar. At least one of those bills, HB 456 to ban e-cigarettes on school campuses, already is back on the House General State Calendar. Did Stickland really knock these bills off they local calendar because they were statewide bills deserving debate, as he told the House? The calendar usually is called the local and “uncontested” calendar. Or was this some sort of temper tantrum? Also, Representative Charlie Geren, dragging a cookie around on a string while pretending to lure Stickland away from the back microphone was just tacky.

Then there’s Representative Boris Miles, who attempted to say hello to Paxton. When a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper wouldn’t let Miles into Paxton’s private dining room, Miles became belligerent, according to a DPS report.

Finally, though not politics, there’s a sad story in The Dallas Morning News about sportswriter Jim Dent. During the first days of my career, I briefly worked with Dent at the Beaumont Enterprise, which the DMN described as a “pit stop.” In the mid-to-late 1970s, getting a job at a major metro paper was tough. Most would not even look at your resume unless you had a minimum of five years experience. So when a guy like Dent got a job at The Dallas Times-Herald, it was a beacon of hope for all of us rookies who wanted to climb the ladder of professional success. Besides, Jim Dent was a heck of a nice guy.  I lost track of Dent on a personal level as soon as he left Beaumont, but like everyone I saw his career dazzle as a sports writer. Unknown to most of us, though, his personal life was a disaster of alcoholism, and now it looks like his career will come to a tragic end with a long prison sentence for repeat DWIs. I’d rather see Dent get treatment than prison, but it is apparent from this article that previous incarcerations have done little to resolve his demons.