Grits for Breakfast

He no more has a plan for this than he did for Iran.

I have a perennial soft spot for Wiley College after studying how Gov. Price Daniel suppressed civil rights demonstrations and purged faculty there and at Butler College, also (then) in Marshall, in the early 1960s. Lots of what happened there 60+ years ago is happening at UT and Texas A&M rn.

Wiley is up 2-0 in the top of the 1st. I wonder if I'd get in too much trouble w/ Kathy if I took the baby over? (2 mo on the 8th) Might be one of those things where it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, or, alternatively, where discretion is the better part of valor. Difficult call.

HT pitchers take two HBCU Athletic Conference weekly awards - Huston-Tillotson University Walker, Bailey each recorded wins over Arlington Baptist last week

Damn it, Huston Tillotson is playing Wiley College tonight and it sounds like a great crowd, but I've got both granddaughters over and solo babysitting duty later when the missus goes out w/ the older one, so I'm gonna miss it. HT's pitching is MUCH better this year thanks to a coupla transfers.

Governor, tell Mary Moriarty to file state charges in the Pretti and Good shootings. There is literally no other way there will ever be accountability in those cases if state prosecutors won't take the lead. There is PLENTY of probable cause for indictments. It's past time to prosecute. Start.

Honestly, if you bought your kid an assault weapon and they kill a bunch of their classmates, maybe there shd be some accountability coming your way.

Doesn't change the fact that a kid owning the gun shd be illegal. But shd isn't is, and I'm tired of pretending the gun nuts are rational, good ppl.

I knew him a little back in the day, and right before he passed, the Statesman and Chronicle both did stories about the Black Senators w/ him as the primary source. He and I spoke 2x about it back then, but I didn't start the project till almost 30 years later.

Austin's black semi-pro team began as the Reds in 1894, and became the Black Senators 14 years later.

I took this up for 2 reasons: 1) the team played at Downs Field *right* behind my house in the 1930s, and 2) my adopted daughter's biological great grandpa was their announcer post WW2.

The predominance of a handful of professions in early black baseball is one of those fascinating historical/sociological nuances that, once you ID it, has huge explanatory and predictive value. The number of barbers who played or sponsored teams was especially remarkable.

Indeed, @michaelharriot.bsky.social, and until you mentioned it, I hadn't checked to see if he's #onhere. (He is.)

This was true all over Texas as well. In Waco, 1891, a black semi-pro squad of some renown called the Yellowjackets was founded by a pair of waiters from one of their downtown hotels. In Austin, the Driskill waiters had a team called "The Tray Artists."

Black Baseball, 1858-1900: A Comprehensive Record of the Teams, Players, Managers, Owners and Umpires Black Baseball, 1858-1900: A Comprehensive Record of the Teams, Players, Managers, Owners and Umpires [Brunson III, James E.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Black Baseball, 1858-1900: A Comprehensive Record of the Teams, Players, Managers, Owners and Umpires

Hotel waiters and barbers were the backbone of early black baseball all over, there's a wonderful essay on that topic exploring it in ways I've never seen anywhere else, in James E. Brunson III's encyclopedia on 19th century players: “Black Baseball: 1858 - 1900” www.amazon.com/Black-Baseba...

Pretty sure I'm right about the team sponsorship. I was able to confirm the saloon's bartenders, porters, waiters, and cooks were all black, and there was a culture among the fanciest downtown businesses -- esp the big hotels, which it abutted -- sponsoring teams of their black employees.

When WW2 started, their director was drafted and after the war, the archive was lost. I've been sporadically looking for it for several years and fear it may never be found. Worst case: It was destroyed when Ebeneezer Baptist built a new sanctuary in the '50s. I wish a university ended up w/ it.

Another example: In the 1930s, black churches in East Austin established a music conservatory to gather and transcribe old spirituals in the era when the last of black folks who'd lived through slavery were dying out. They did this work for nearly a decade.

The old paper zines are still available at the Austin History Center and the PCL at UT in hardcopy, but not online. I suspect that sort of thing happens all the time and is how painstakingly accumulated archives get lost.

Had some personal experience w/ this. In college, I co-edited a student zine called Polemicist that did investigative reporting on UT Austin. In the '90s, a fellow scanned them all and posted them online, where they were available and searchable for many years. Then he passed away and it expired.

This is what I suspected -- that a lot of independent platforms hold one-off archives -- and my fear is it goes away if they do. Researching historic black papers from the segregation era, one finds what gets archived in universities/public libraries gets kept and private archives often get lost.

Idk what to tell you, the reporting is that the drones were originally supplied by Iran several years ago but Russia moved production there and now Iran is not considered a significant supplier. You're saying something different, but that's not my understanding. I think it's mostly a win for Russia.

So I guess the lasers they're using to shoot down quinceañera balloons in El Paso aren't working out fighting drones in the Gulf, either.

The Portal to Texas History - A gateway to rare, historical, and primary source materials from or about Texas. The Portal to Texas History is a gateway to rare, historical, and primary source materials from or about Texas.

They've also uploaded old HS yearbooks and a few other documents. I love the XIT museum for doing this, but also kinda wish they'd pass along their good work to the Portal to Texas History for wider distribution.
texashistory.unt.edu

BTW, the archive of the Dalhart Texan is ONLY available on a site maintained by the XIT Museum, a local museum in Dalhart, not in the aggregated news search sites. This is wonderful and bully for them, but makes me wonder how often local history archives do this and how one wd know?

Former surgeon general: The Senate must not approve someone who can't practice medicine as the nation’s top doctor “The surgeon general is not a wellness influencer,” writes former Surgeon General Jerome Adams of Casey Means.

Opinion: Former surgeon general: The Senate must not approve someone who can’t practice medicine as the nation’s top doctor www.statnews.com/2026/02/27/c...

Meanwhile, they have the chutzpah to ask Zelensky for help shooting down Iran's drones bc they dk wtf they're doing. bsky.app/profile/meid...

Then you understand that the US considering Iran a "big problem" began long bf 1979 and starting the timeline there serves to justify the war more than illuminate the geopolitical scenario, much less honestly evaluate the threat they posed prior to the US' entirely unprovoked attacks against them.

The lion's head and feet at the base are killing me, that's hilariously over the top. Above image taken from this site, where there are also pics of a restored antique version.
www.billiardrestoration.com/antique-pool...

From Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. Catalogue Original Catalog Description The Monarch: This magnificent table embodies great solidity and massiveness of construction, with elegance and grace of design. It is very ornamental, the sides being of wood tastefully inlaid with various colored mosaics, and the legs being of iron finished in black and gold. A leveling screw in the center of the feet assist in establishing a perfect level over the entire surface of the table. It is unique in style, and a departure from the established idea of a Billiard Table, and has met with much favor among those of acknowledged taste.

Researching a 19th century white saloon owner in Austin who appears to have sponsored a black baseball team, at least for a season, I ran across a clip mentioning the specific model of pool tables (3) he installed in the 1880s -- the "Monarch" -- and it's pretty fabulous.

Groundwater study looks at shared management strategy - High Plains Journal University's new research: Could correlative allocations be game changer for Texas’ groundwater management woes?

Groundwater management districts are Texas' only means of regulating water use, and only cover ~70% of the state. This article describes why many "issue permits that exceed sustainable production limits" and "lead to overproduction, undermining long-term sustainability" hpj.com/2025/03/21/g...

How Important Is Iran For Russia's War Effort? Iran has been a major supplier of military equipment to Russia in recent years, especially since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but experts have told RFE/RL that this...

Iran originally designed the drones, but as I understand it, they're now mostly produced in Russia. I think it's fair to say that boosting RU bank accounts and depleting arms needed by their battlefield enemy definitely harms Ukraine far more than Russia. www.rferl.org/a/iran-prote...

Russia Is Big Winner as Iran War Drains Supplies That Ukraine Needs The conflict is draining supplies Ukraine needs for its defense, while surging oil prices are boosting the Russian economy.

Russia Is Big Winner as Iran War Drains Supplies That Ukraine Needs: Kyiv faces a shortfall of missile interceptors for its air defense, while surging oil prices are boosting Russia’s economy
www.wsj.com/world/europe...