I was going to do this earlier today but I had a feeling. I had a strong feeling that some heavy news was going drop around quitting time, what they call “the Friday News Dump.” Essentially, it’s news that was going to come out anyway so why not let it happen just before everyone goes home for the weekend. Gives the dropper a chance to get ahead of the narrative before the Sunday shows hit or if they’re really lucky, the hoi polloi will forget all about it by Monday.
That didn’t happen, though. There’s a reason I’ve always been a better storyteller than a reporter. I was an awful reporter but there’s more to journalism than just being a good reporter. A lot of folks forget that, even some who work for big news sources.
But that’s neither here nor there. It’s the end of the week so let’s see what we can pull together and perhaps get our collective heads around this thing called Life In These United States. The parents of the kid that shot up that school in Michigan earlier in the week – you can read about him here and I’m not going to give him any more space – and killed five co-workers. Local prosecution officials charged his parents with involuntary manslaughter.
This is rather rare, actually, but it’s figured they had enough hand in getting this kid to where he had the notion to shoot up his school. His mom especially comes off looking very poorly. A new twist in the story, however, is as of right now – 5:15 p.m. Central – no one knows where they are. Their attorney told officials that they’d left the area for safety’s sake and would come with legal representation to turn themselves in. They had a 4 p.m. hearing and best I can find, they’ve missed that.
For the record, this sort of thing – the law letting folks turn themselves in with their lawyer rather than going out and getting them – is fairly common, as well. Moving on, Darrell Brooks gave an interview the other day, to Fox News of all people. He says he feels he’s being “demonized” which, and I’m not going to lie, completely robs me of comment. His momma released a statement expressing sympathy to the victims’ families and claiming her son had mental issues that were basically ignored by law enforcement. He’s got a long history of petty crime, drugs, sexual assault, and around fifty other incidents in around 20 years.
That’s that. The latest variant of the COVID-19 virus we’ve all been putting up with for the last two years, Omicron, has pretty much spread all over the world since it was noted by South African scientists last week. Somewhere around 30 people here in the States have been found so far and the eggheads are saying it tends to spread easier than other variants but isn’t necessarily more dangerous. It does seem to be able to slip around vaccinations, so scientists are recommending getting a booster shot if you were on the fence.
A lot of countries implemented traveling restrictions that weren’t just from countries in Africa. President Joe Biden issued a whole wad of them, most importantly saying that everyone who was flying in from another country was getting tested. Everyone. He also extended the mask mandate for passengers to March 18. It’s worth checking out all the details if you plan to travel, but for the most part, everyone is being encouraged to do their normal holiday traveling.
In local news that makes me uncomfortable, a former FBI agent will be the new police chief in Tupelo. Newly elected Mayor Todd Jordan is doing the normal house clearing and the city council will vote on it Tuesday. One John Quaka, been working out the Greenville office since the Tupelo office shut down, and I didn’t know Tupelo had an FBI office. The last couple of Tupelo chiefs have retired, so this guy’s in for the long haul, he says.
And finally, in “rich people who have too much damn money,” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban bought a town in Texas, apparently because he felt like it. Mustang, Texas, is about 40 miles south of Dallas and was initially founded to have another place to drink in Navarro County. These days it’s just a trailer park and a run-down strip club, which sounds more like Ray Wylie Hubbard song than anything I’ve ever heard in my entire life.
These days, 21 folks call it home and about 77-acres all told. For clarification, I own more than 77-acres. However much Cuban spent on it, it was probably less than the four-million dollar price tag the town had a couple of years ago. Cuban’s got six billion, so this is basically a week’s worth of pocket change.
Have a nice weekend.
Dear Y'all 