Texas Outlaw Writers Newsletter: Spring Break It Edition
How's your Spring Break going? Are you skiing? Touring Europe? Building sand castles along the beach? Or are you passed out on the couch while the kids are finishing off the last box of ThinMints™ in their 12th hour of playing Minecraft?
Remember when you were young and full of fun and your Spring Break cooler was full of PBRs and you had a pocketful of discretionary 10s and 20s and you piled into the Jeep with a few of your besties and headed for Port A? Or even better, South Padre (shouting the joyful cry, "and then we're going to MEXICO!")
And now? You're home...on the sofa. You couldn't even find a dogsitter. The Price Is Right is on in a few minutes, and the kids didn't see you spike that Bloody Mary with a double shot of Grey Goose. You'll get the brats over to the Museum of Natural Science later in the week... see the dinosaurs and rocks and shit. If they don't t'ump over the T-Rex skeleton, maybe you'll let 'em have a Happy Meal somewhere.
You don't want to travel anyway.
On the west coast? This may be the year that California DOES slide into the ocean. A nor'easter continues to hammer parts of the Northeast. The airport parking lots are overflowing and the planes are full. Airline executives are kneeling before their IT systems, lighting candles and praying that the Windows 95 Operating systems keep humming along.
And don't even think about Mexico. Several high-profile kidnappings have occurred in the last month or so, and the drug cartels are using up ammunition as fast as the Ukrainian army. You can barely trust them to sell you unadulterated drugs anymore!
Thinking about finding one of those great drive-through zoos or Safari parks? Fuhgettahboutit. The Zebras are on the rise. They're pissed, and they're not going to take it anymore. They'll bite your arm off.
"Well gee, what kind of newsletter is this that can't provide at least one suggestion for Spring Break Fun?"
You're right. So might we suggest an old-fashioned sing-along? And a patriotic one at that. Enjoy Donald Trump and the J6 Prison Choir in "Justice For All." Yes, you read that right.
"J6 Prison Choir consists of individuals who have been incarcerated as a result of their involvement in the January 6, 2021 protest for election integrity after President Donald J. Trump stated "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard". The J6PC continues to make their voices heard through the power of music and sings "The Star Spangled Banner" every evening before bed."
But wait, there's more. This emotional music masterpiece can be delivered to your home or cell block for only $99.99. (You think I'm making this up, don't you?) You'll receive this moving tribute to the incarcerated insurrectionists of "J6" as lead by the Angry Creamsicle himself on a 7" 45 RPM vinyl record. (Get it? 45 on a 45? Though Stormy D would dispute that whole 7" thing.)
And... there's more! A BONUS recording of America's Cheetoh-flavored president is on side B!
Look, $99.99 SEEMS like a lot of money. For a recording by a few traitorous convicts and their gang leader. And it is. But you can feel good in knowing that whatever funds are leftover after President Griftalot takes his cut, will go to "Support Certain Prisoners Denied Their Constitutional Rights." Don't worry about the details. If Trump's name is on it, then you can count on him taking care of the money.
Make your spring break a joyful one. Just like the J6 Prison Choir, you can sing "'The Star Spangled Banner' every evening before bed."
It IS Spring Break. And Roger Gray took one. He asked if you would remember him and his career in journalism. As the great Walter Cronkite once remarked:
"Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy... It is not the reporter's job to be a patriot or to presume to determine where patriotism lies. His job is to relate the facts." - Walter Cronkite
on the other hand, Hunter S. Thompson may have had a better understanding of journalism and reporters:
As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. - Hunter S. Thompson
Roger has been at this for a while, and he's heard it all. Been called all sorts of things. The haters gonna hate louder every year. He'd simply like to report the facts, ma'am, and in return? Just send a little love his way...
Roger T. Gray
It seems unbelievable that only in our lifetime have women been allowed to have credit in their name, sign for a loan, obtain birth control Rx, own property if married (in all states,) breastfeed in public, and of course, obtain an abortion.
It goes without saying that all of those "rights" are up for grabs in our current political/cultural climate. What we all once thought was settled law is now uncertain.
Myra Jolivet continues her series on Women's History Month by naming names. Of some of the not-as-well-known heroes in the fight for women's rights. These are women who fought and fought hard - some giving their lives - for those rights.
Myra Jolivet, SMPS
In a few days, it will be exactly twenty years since the US invasion of Iraq. None of the reasons to justify the war ever proved up. But thousands of young Americans and more than a million Iraqis have died since the war was launched. Jim Moore spent time seeking out the families of fallen soldiers and Marines to see if the sacrifice was tolerable for the surviving loved ones. The answers aren’t easy for us to hear, even after all this time. His piece this week is about an exemplary young man, a Marine, who appears to have been killed by friendly fire in the opening hours of the war………
James C. Moore