The State of Texas: Nov. 22, 2013

Furry Friday

It’s every animal-loving weirdo’s dream. A dog that that never loses its sweet, cuddley-wuddley puppy face. Enter the “cava-poo-chon,” the latest designer dog being genetically grown right here in Texas. While the American Kennel Club doesn’t recognize the cava-poo-chon as an official breed, you can still purchase this ten pounds of cute for a mere $2,000 to $3,500. No word on if it also has permanent puppy breath, the sweetest smell in the universe.

Photo of the Day

Perhaps a Bum Steer nominee, except who hasn’t been overly proud of their catch? A Texas man was arrested and later fined after he posted pictures of his enormously successful fishing trip. As these things do, the photos went somewhat viral, but they sparked an investigation by game wardens and resulted in the fisherman pleading guilty to “nine charges of possession of oversize red drum, one charge of no saltwater fishing license, and one charge of exceeding the possession limit for red drum.” The man would do well in the future by following normal fisherman protocol: just lie about how big your catch was.

Friday Playlist

Earlier this week, the Dallas Observer announced its plan to host a North Texas hip-hop showcase. The January event will be like Austin’s Fun Fun Fun or ACL, except, you know, less moody shoe-gazing. To pass the time before all the awesomeness, check out the headliner A.Dd+ as well as other rising stars in the Dallas scene like Sam Lao and Blue the Misfit.

Daily Roundup

Happy Assass-aversary — Morbid? Maybe. But if you’re not already suffering from assassination fatigue, then be sure to check out Texas Monthly‘s collection of stories about the Kennedy assassination. The section includes gems like Lawrence Wright’s essay on America’s ugly perception of Dallas (and Texans in general) and “Who Was Jack Ruby?” the longform piece by the legendary Gary Cartwright.

#Objection — The embarrassing charade concerning death row inmate Duane Buck took a particularly juvenile turn a couple days ago when prosecutors got into a feud with Buck’s lawyers … on Twitter. The tweet-fight happened hours after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Buck’s request for a new sentencing hearing. No one doubts Buck’s guilt, but people are concerned with the sentencing and the fact that a psychologist testified as an expert witness that Buck was more of a danger to society because he’s black. And saying, in 140 characters or less, that such racial problems don’t exist in the death penalty debate is a definite #Fail.

Wiki-Tactics — A Texas-based PR firm has received a cease-and-desist letter from the folks at Wikipedia, which has accused the firm of paying “people to distort Wikipedia entries on behalf of clients who want to erase embarrassing history or boost their image (or both),” according to Boing Boing. The firm planted hundreds of dubious wiki-entries and made thousands of edits promoting clients and created more than 300 “editor” accounts to propagate the scam, known as “sockpuppeting.” To be fair, the “scam” wasn’t that clandestine. The company’s name is Wiki-PR.

Here-Here Four Educashun — The State Board of Education had a busy week. The good news for science-lovers is that the newly approved science books (hotly debated back in September) won’t include “disclaimers,” which creationists wanted beside any mention of Darwinian theory. In fact, SBOE’s vice president isn’t expecting any major, unscientific changes and said the books will be approved “without much debate.” This, as the Dallas Morning News notes, “signals a long-term change in the board’s politics.” While that’s a win for science, there was a loss for math. Yesterday, the SBOE reversed course on its wonderfully sneaky plan to essentially require all high school students to take Algebra II. The SBOE appears to have changed its mind after pressure from numerous parents and legislators saying Algebra II often wasn’t “relevant” to the kids, who had already been given an inadequate education.