Wingmen
Nothing’s worse than a highway patrol cop who’s in it just to generate revenue, exceed his quotas (brownnoser), and probably get off on being a bully. To the two flatfoots who’ve transformed a small section of the Chisholm Trail Parkway into their own little speed trap, choke on some overcooked gizzard! At least twice a week, one of these jerks will park on the shoulder of the southbound lane, just beyond the Alta Mesa flyover and about 400 yards before the Sycamore School exit. Why? Because right at the exit, the speed limit goes up, from 60 to 70 miles per hour. People who use the road regularly know this and start going faster as soon as that “70 SPEED LIMIT” sign comes into view. But ah ah ah ah! Officers Jerkwad and A-Hole want you to wait until after you’ve passed the sign to step on your accelerator. Otherwise, on go the flashing lights behind you. This isn’t about traffic safety. It’s about abusing authority. What’s worse is that any highway you drive down these days is crawling with texting drivers. Let’s get them off the road first, before we start going after low-hanging fruit.
Frog: The Other (Really) White Meat
It’s not easy being a white TCU student these days. Just ask sophomore Harry Vincent. All he did was tweet several horribly racist comments about the African-Americans protesting in Baltimore (“hoodrat criminals,” in his words) and basically said all Muslims are terrorists. He did get some support –– from Fox News, of course –– but TCU administrators quickly put the kibosh on Vincent’s antics, placing him on probation and mandating that he perform community service. Good on you, Horny Toads. Harry, you’ve still got some growing up to do, pal.
Wattle in a Bottle
In theory, the Dock Bookshop is a valuable intellectual outpost for the African-American community in Fort Worth. In practice, though, the store abdicated its responsibility when its owners let Ayo Kimathi, a.k.a. The Irritated Genie of Soufeese, air his poisonous rhetoric there at a speaking engagement. The former U.S. Homeland Security Department employee (until he was terminated for his views) was allowed to wax pseudoscientific about the fundamental savagery of white people, who turn black people gay by raping them. Believing that all sex with white people is rape, Kimathi advocates that black people stockpile guns to exterminate both whites and black homosexuals en masse. Kimathi does have the right to turn his insecure masculinity into some racist, genocidal ideology, but why the Dock saw fit to bring this violence-promoting demagogue to town is beyond us. (We asked them. They wouldn’t answer us.) For them, we envision a Thanksgiving dinner at the Dock that includes both Kimathi and Stephen Slade Passariello (see: relevant item) and all their firearms. Oh, to be a fly on that turkey!
Birds of a Feather …
What’s this about Canadians being so even-keeled and happy? Blue Jays fans showed their true selves against the Texas Rangers in the ALDS at Rogers Centre in Toronto. Prior to the game, a Canadian sportswriter described Arlington as that “strip-mall wormhole you pass through on the way to Fort Worth.” Hey, now. Arlington is our wormhole, so hands off. During that fateful Game 5, the home team athletic supporters turned into whiners and rabble-rousers. After a bad call, Jays fans went psycho, throwing beer cans and trash onto the field in objection. One can almost hit a baby. That’s right. Canadians are baby assaulters, too. Every Blue Jay fan who came unhinged deserves a frozen turkey carcass right a-boot now, eh?
Hunka Hunka Burning Glove
Isn’t Elvis Andrus adorable? The Rangers’ shortstop has so much fun on the field, especially with star third-baseman Adrian Beltre. They prank each other and fake argue, and it’s so totes adorbs when Elvis touches Beltre’s head.
You know what’s not so cute? When your underachieving shortstop is such an unfocused head-case that he makes three (three!) errors in one inning in a deciding playoff game. Andrus single-handedly choked away a victory against the Toronto Blue Jays –– a W would have sent the Rangers to the ALCS — ending the home team’s miracle season.
Andrus should focus less on being cutsie with Beltre and more on fielding routine ground balls in high-leverage situations. Maybe someone will slip some ADHD medicine into his turkey this Thanksgiving.
Green Eggs and Ham — and Turkey
Stunningly arrogant, not nearly as bright as he thinks he is, his Harvard credentials notwithstanding (or because of them), and so fully full of, well, we’ll stay polite and say nonsense, Sweaty Teddy Cruz is the imbecile who misread Green Eggs and Ham as part of a “heroic” effort to shut down the U.S. government in 2013. He’s the same guy who voted against federal help for the victims of Hurricane Sandy but held out his hand for flood relief for Texans. This is the man who denies climate change, who claims that the Obama administration “seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights” (that’s not a typo), who thinks Sharia law is an “enormous problem” in the United States, and who is planning on shutting down the government again if Planned Parenthood funds are not cut from future budgets. And when Gov. Abbott kowtowed to the rednecks scared of Jade Helm, Coo-Coo Cruz had his back: “I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don’t trust what it is saying.”
All this from the clown who wants to be president. And who isn’t polling too terribly. But keep that cockscomb brushed, Senator. It’s as close to a crown as you’re ever going to get.
Alarm Cluck
We hate to pile on … oh, who are we kidding? We love it! The rest of the world already told Irving school district leaders what a bunch of dumbasses they were after they had 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed put in handcuffs for bringing a homemade device that even teachers didn’t believe to be a real bomb to school. Not only did the school never apologize to its student for the misunderstanding, its principal blamed the media for the uproar and hinted at a shadowy conspiracy and facts that weren’t known to the general public — we suppose those were matters of national security. This is just the latest incident in a well-documented pattern of both the school and the city of Irving harassing its law-abiding Muslim citizens and crying wolf about the imposition of a Sharia law that no one is clamoring for. The whole thing made the truth clear: Brown-skinned people are not welcome in the paranoid, narrow-minded little town of Irving. For all the Christians responsible, we reserve what’s rapidly becoming our annual halal turkey for prejudice against Muslims.
Race to the Table, Mustangs
When an alleged member of an SMU sorority claimed on social media that female black students are too ugly and lazy to get bids, the university decried the racist rant as deplorable. In a public statement, a spokesperson said the school couldn’t really do much else –– because the suspected SMU girl’s comments were made on a non-university-related website.
Major. Fail. Never mind that the incident presented school officials with a great opportunity to take another step toward changing SMU’s reputation as the biggest old-boy country club of “higher learning” in not just Texas but the entire country. The Ponies did nothing to discover the identity of the commenter and punish her –– unlike the good folks at TCU, who suspended a Horned Frog for racist remarks he made in the wake of the Baltimore riots. Did SMU leaders at least pay lip service to making sure nothing like this happens again?
Nah. Our Dallas friends simply threw up their hands, clearly hoping this whole institutional racism thing works itself out someday. Instead of turkey, maybe SMU higher-ups should get a heaping helping of calf fries –– just so they know what balls look like.
Butterballer
DeAndre Jordan is just the worst and not just because he agreed to sign with the Dallas Mavericks and then changed his mind. The Clippers’ center wouldn’t even answer calls or texts from his so-called friend Chandler Parsons or Mavs owner Mark Cuban, who both worked their asses off recruiting Jordan to Big D.
After announcing he’d signed a four-year $80 million deal with Dallas, the Clippers’ Chris Paul, Doc Rivers, and Blake Griffin went to Jordan’s Houston home and gave him the hard sell. He almost immediately caved and then left the reeling Mavs in the lurch. Jordan was supposed to be the big man that the Mavs never had: a dominant young player who would anchor the team’s defense for years to come. Instead of coming to a franchise where he would have been the star, he instead chose to stay in LaLa and play third fiddle.
DeAndre Jordan doesn’t deserve any turkey this Thanksgiving, but maybe someone should promise him some and then, at the last second, replace it with chicken –– because that’s what he is.
From My Cold Dead Claw
State Rep. Jonathan Strickland (R-Bedford) is a huge fan of open carry. This is Texas, after all, so his support shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. But when he encouraged protesters to bring their guns to Austin last March for a demonstration in support of his open-carry bill, a few of the armed activists tried to bully a democratic representative into supporting the proposed legislation. And what did Strickland do to stop the gun-toting thugs from trying to intimidate a fellow lawmaker? Nothing.
Maybe he lacked the courage to stand up to the armed rabble. Perhaps he liked seeing the anarchic display. Whatever his motivation, the fact that he didn’t take action to defend our already lopsided lawmaking process showed the world what a real turkey he is.
Smoking Gun (Nut)
Everyone with dark-colored skin, take cover! Here comes Stephen Slade Passariello! This past July, when Willie Hudspeth staged one of his periodic protests at Denton’s Confederate soldier memorial (let’s have a boo for the memorial), Oklahoma State student and Denton native Passariello decided to voice his support for the slave-holding South by bringing a loaded AR-15 rifle in counterprotest. Presumably he did this because pointing a firearm at someone always leads to calm, logical, reasoned debate. Passariello — who has a history on Facebook of wishing violence against African-Americans — left the area when Denton police pointed out that the gun, being unstrapped to his body, could be stolen, but they arrested him in September on a prohibited weapons charge. All this from a guy who describes himself as “pretty chill” on his Twitter page. We might be harshing the vibe of this self-appointed Confederate soldier by giving him this Turkey Award, but we plan to stay at least 700 meters away from him, outside the firing range of his semiautomatic.
Blinded by Thigh-ence
Vaccine-hating, science-denying Rep. Bill Zedler (R-Arlington) is no stranger to the Weekly’s rapier-like pen. But this year, he crossed over into full-on turkey territory when he engaged a fellow state representative, J.D. Sheffield (R-Gatesville) in a floor debate. Hilarity ensued. Sheffield, a medical doctor by trade, had to explain to Zedler the difference between bacteria and a virus.
For not paying attention in high school biology class, Zedler gets a turkey leg that’s been sitting out for several days collecting bacteria –– or is it a virus, Bill?
All-Natural Winner
In Jon Daniels’ 10 years as general manager, the Texas Rangers have gone to the World Series twice, made the playoffs two other seasons, and played a tiebreaker game for a chance at the postseason another. Five trips past the regular season out of a decade is enough to make Jerry Jones’ face need another lift, so why are there still so many Rangers “fans” calling for JD’s head?
We get it. Nolan Ryan is one of the biggest personalities that North Texas has ever seen, and his run as team president had a major impact on how the Rangers were viewed on a local and national level. The years that Ryan and Daniels worked in the same front office (from 2008 to just before the start of the 2014 season) were filled with enough he said/he said drama to make the world wish Harry had never met Sally, but let’s focus on what has happened since Ryan’s departure. In 2014, the Rangers suffered more losses due to injury than any other team in the history of the sport –– the team last had as many L’s 30 years ago. Cries of the “Nolan Ryan Curse” couldn’t be avoided.
This year was no less brutal when it came to injuries. Once again, the Rangers led all teams in days with players on the disabled list. Yet this time the club stayed afloat. No Darvish? No problem. Three other starters out for at least half the season? Pshhhh. The worst April record in club history? Merely a hiccup. Daniels’ focus on the present and the future rewarded us with another trip to the postseason. So put down your Nolan Ryan All-Natural Beef hot dogs, JD haters. There is enough turkey to feed you all.
