The State of Texas: September 14, 2015

Tweet of the Day

Poor Dez, he finally negotiates a contract with the Cowboys and not even a month passes before he’s injured (in this case, he’ll need foot surgery). But that didn’t stop him from enthusiastically, and nakedly, congratulating teammates following their Sunday win against the New York Giants.

Dez Bryant just hopped out of locker room, yelling at teammates, "That's what the f— I'm talking about": pic.twitter.com/LyXxBWwliM

— Brandon George (@DMN_George) September 14, 2015

Video Monday

People marked September 11 in a lot of ways. Some climbed stairs. Some tweeted. Some . . . cheered? The Lumberton High School cheerleading squad’s 9/11 tribute—a routine that featured audio from the attacks—went viral over the weekend. As with all things on the Internet, the response has been extremely varied.

Daily Roundup

Blowback — It’s been four months since the shooting deaths of nine people at a Twin Peaks in Waco, and details about the incident are still sparse. But officials are now getting their own, less desirable spotlight from a big-picture piece from the Associated Press. It’s not damning or particularly new news, but it’s certainly not pretty: “Although police and the district attorney described last spring everyone who was taken into custody as criminals, an Associated Press review of a Texas Department of Public Safety database found no convictions listed under the names and birthdates of more than two-thirds of those arrested,” according to the story. The piece also highlights just how incestuous the local power structure really is. “It’s a city where a district judge and district attorney are former law partners, the mayor is the son of a former mayor, the sheriff comes from a long line of lawmen and Waco pioneers and the sheriff’s brother was the district attorney’s chief investigator.” And it doesn’t help that Sheriff Parnell McNamara “describes the county’s criminal justice system as a close-knit Christian ‘posse’ of Baylor University graduates committed to ‘putting away as many hard-core criminals as possible.'”

Perry, Perry, Done and Wary — Let us have a moment of silence for the most innocuous presidential candidate we’ve seen this election cycle. Yes, on Friday, Rick Perry announced that he was ~~quitting~~ suspending his campaign. “We have a tremendous field—the best in a generation—so I step aside knowing our party is in good hands,” said Perry, as reported by Politico. The story notes that “Perry began alerting donors and supporters as early as Thursday that he was planning to drop out,” though with his money woes—he’s had trouble paying and staffing offices across the country—it really isn’t that much of a surprise. But what happened, exactly, to make Perry drop out? We’ll have plenty of time to discuss! NPR’s quick assessment is that “In Texas, It May Have All Come Too Easily for Rick Perry,” which seems reasonable enough. There were plenty of eulogies for our state’s longest-serving governor. Over at The Week, Michael Dougherty had a rather fiery defense of Perry, calling the loss “a damn shame” and “an indictment of Republican voters, who express a preference for entertainers and oddities.” Although we’d classify Perry as an entertainer in his own right, there’s definitely something to be said for Dougherty’s point that “anyone with any damn sense in their head knows he’s better qualified than half of the people on the stage, and he has a better story to tell.” The Wall Street Journal, too, lamented the candidate, writing that “the shame is that Mr. Perry has been a far better candidate than he was four years ago.” In other presidential news, George P. Bush is taking a little heat for the amount of time he’s spent campaigning for Daddy Jeb. Speaking with the Texas Tribune, G.P. pushed back on a Houston Chronicle story that stated he “has been out of the state or otherwise off of work nearly half of the time since his father entered the GOP race for president.” This is all polished politics, though. For those who wanna get to the streets, “more than a thousand people are expected to march through rush-hour traffic Monday in downtown Dallas to ‘Dump the Trump,'” writes the Dallas Morning News.

Black Bells — On Friday, the Houston Chronicle published the closest thing to an “inside look” anyone has gotten at Blue Bell. With the ice cream back on the shelf (and plenty of commentary about Texans rethinking their loyalty), the paper spoke with former employees, and the picture is less than idyllic. “In interviews with the Houston Chronicle, more than a dozen former employees of Blue Bell’s flagship Brenham plant described a company fighting to keep up with its growing customer base while sanitation and safety slipped,” reads the article. “Cleanup workers regularly ran out of hot water, making machinery susceptible to pathogens and allergens. Reused packaging brought grime into the factory. Equipment went without safeguards for years, and several workers lost parts of one or more fingers.” Lest anyone think the story is just a bunch of disgruntled ex-workers, “the 14 employees have a combined 213 years of experience on the production lines. Their accounts are bolstered by the limited information reported by the Food and Drug Administration, including details about a contaminated machine that kept cranking out products even as a listeria crisis deepened. They’re also backed by an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation that blasted the company for failing to protect workers.” The lengthy piece is worth a read, at the very least because it’s always healthy to do a little self-examination, especially when it comes to nostalgia and brand loyalty.

Second Down — What the heck is happening with Texas football? For the second week in a row, a high school player was caught on camera roughing up a ref. The St. Anthony player (yup, another San Antonio team) was videotaped shoving an official during the team’s loss against Austin’s Hyde Park High. “On Saturday’s play, Cardenas fielded a low snap, retrieved the ball behind him and was sacked,” reports Fox Sports. “As Cardenas came to his feet, video appears to show the quarterback shoving an opponent to draw a penalty flag. Cardenas originally walked away before an official approached him. As the two came closer, the official threw another flag before Cardenas shoved him.” Naturally, Deadspin tweeted out the shove so that everyone can watch it on a loop. Is football broken? Even the New York Times is asking that question, with a look at the John Jay High School incident a week prior and its impact on the area. Ultimately, the story was aggravatingly even-handed. “Among the students, parents and faculty at John Jay, reactions were varied. Several students interviewed last week agreed that the two players had crossed a line, but some also expressed frustration that the racial slur allegations were being played down and asserted that John Jay was being unfairly painted with a broad brush for the actions of two players.”