Bag of Randomness for Tuesday, May 28, 2024

  • Dallas is ‘this’ close to being a professional sports mecca of champions. It’s too bad the Wings of the WNBA are the only team holding the city back from sports greatness.
  • Gosh, I hope you can tell I was being a bit sarcastic in that last bullet point. But really, even if you haven’t followed the Mavs and Stars very much, I hope you can acknowledge how special and rare this sort of thing is for a city. It’s one of those moments you should let your guard down and take in the moment of being part of a community. Surely, you will admit it’s better to come together as a city for sports than it is for grief over a mass shooting.
  • NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton has died. When I was in college, NBC just hired him and I couldn’t find a single person who liked his commentary. The man annoyed me for the longest time. Then, I slowly saw a man who was always at peace with himself and sought happiness without infringing on others. And, that’s a pretty cool thing.
  • This story has Dallas ties – After ‘whites only’ job posting, Va. tech company hit with fine from the Justice Department
    • The job posting by Ashburn-based Arthur Grand Technologies Inc. was published in March 2023 and said that the company was only looking for “U.S. Born Citizens [white] who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, TX [Don’t share with candidates],” according to a Justice Department news release.
  • Proposed Texas GOP platform calls for the Bible in schools
    • Republican Party of Texas delegates voted on a platform calling for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment requiring statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.
    • Stay with me here. Prohibition happened because zealot Christians were trying to impose their beliefs on others. I have a feeling Trump is going to win and a lot of similar pro-Christian stuff will be implemented in all forms of government. Then, like prohibition, people will wise up and realize things were just fine the way we had them, that all this isn’t about Christian values but Christian power, and revert to separating church and state again.
    • And with all that said, I’m looking forward to watching this film.

  • Pope Francis was accused of making homophobic slur in a closed-door meeting. The newspaper articles, which were translated from Italian, claimed the Pope had said there is “frociaggine” – which translates in English to “faggotry” – in some seminaries. I’m willing to bet he’s not the only top-level church official associated with a branch of Christianity who has used a version of that word recently.
    • The last time I got together with my scholarship buddies, we talked about many friends we no longer keep in touch with. One of those we talked about was someone who came out after we all left HSU, and he went off to a well-respected grad school. One of my friends, the man who is the son of a preacher (and recently lost his mother to cancer) and has been preaching at the same church for over 20 years, mentioned that his biggest regret in college was all the gay jokes we made around him and how that must have made him feel. That friend kept shaking his head, saying, “I even roomed with the guy, and there’s no telling what I said out of humor that made him feel terrible inside. I wish I could take it all back.” I never knew he felt that way, and it was sincere. It showed me he’s grown a lot over the years. One person I’d like to recognize for the great man he turned into today is his devoted wife.
  • I knew there was more to that viral video of the single mother crying and making her own birthday cake. It’s all too common, and it’s been pointed out to me often. Either way, kids should get equal time with both parents as long as there’s no real safety concern and child support is being paid.

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