- Dana Carvey recently lost his son. This week he returned to his podcast with David Spade. He mentioned going to church, which made me curious about his spiritual life, “We’re all together and we do a lot of fun things,” Carvey said. “We hike, we go to church. You just want to make sure that you keep moving.”
- I’m not sure why I’ve had a stigma of East Texas since childhood. In particular, Tyler. I think my brother had a playoff game there and I didn’t have a good time or the long drive out there. In my Texas history class, when I learned the city was named after the president in office when Texas was annexed, I thought that was pretty cool. As an adult, when I read about how that president betrayed the country he once led (he pledged his allegiance to the Confederacy, and his coffin was draped with its flag, making him the only president not to have the United States flag used), then I thought it was weird for a city to hold the name of a person in disrepute. Over time, I don’t think the name is held in disrepute at all because people don’t make the connection and link history as I often like to do.
- I think I wasn’t a good student when it came to the Civil War. It’s possible that my school system did a poor job of teaching it, but I feel more responsible for my lack of knowledge, even if my teachers would disagree. But I remember the first time I came across the name Jefferson Davis. I was courting who would become my wife and we were visiting her sister and brother-in-law in Marshall, in East Texas. They lived on a street or avenue named, “Jeff Davis.” I knew who Jim Davis was (the creator of Garfield the Cat), but not Jeff. Smartphones weren’t a thing then, so I had to look it up, which I did during a break at work. The top results stated it was a shortened name for Jefferson Davis, and I read about who he was. I was like, wow, they live on a street named after the leader of a man who betrayed his country. Why would a place do that? I don’t think I could live on a street named after such a person. Then, I slowly started to learn that East Texas is much different from the area of Texas I grew up in. In my neck of the woods, I guess you could say the South was respected, but wasn’t held in esteem, like East Texas.
- Why did I lead off with those two bullet points? It’s just stuff that came to mind after I was reading about the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man. Yes, for you non-comic book character fans, there are multiple versions of Spider-Man than just Peter Parker, I know it can be hard to keep up. His father was a Black police officer who shared the same name as the late president of the Confederacy. Though the character later changed his name, that’s another story. But, that led me to research why the author, who is white, used that name. It turns out it was the name of a friend’s father, and he never made the connection until readers pointed it out to him after publication.
- Instant leader of the pack.
Siberian Tiger making it's presence known to a group of Bengal Tigers pic.twitter.com/IvLUwH1lqx
— Crazy Clips (@crazyclipsonly) January 17, 2024