Archive for 'Brandon Evans'
Round and round
Posted on 07. Nov, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
Last week Denton County Sheriff’s investigators and narcotics officers helped bring down a network of desperate, drug-addicted individuals engaged in wide-spread theft. The dope fiends allegedly scavenged the land like vultures, ripping copper wire from gas well sites like flesh from bone. These men and women live a hard, paranoid, shaky, scattered, dirty, existence. A [...]
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Constitutional amendments dominate ballot … again
Posted on 24. Oct, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
Imagine if the U.S. Constitution had more than 450 amendments. We certainly couldn’t carry around copies in back pockets any more. Amazingly, the Texas constitution does boast that many amendments. And when early voting begins tomorrow for the Nov. 8 election, there will be 10 more state constitutional amendments to vote on. Just reading through [...]
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Fracking fuels on fire
Posted on 10. Oct, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
Last Monday, Metroplex news cameras were trained on a chemical plant in Waxahachie burning out of control. It turned out that the Magnablend Plant probably has a pretty close connection to Wise County. The plant’s owner Scott Pendery originally said the plant manufactured products for agriculture and oil and gas, and that most of the [...]
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Time to tie knot between minerals and surface
Posted on 03. Oct, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
The separation of surface property and mineral rights in Texas causes more problems than it’s worth. Somehow in this state you can sell land to somebody else but not include ownership of whatever valuable chemicals or minerals or fossil fuels lie buried beneath. The idea of separation between the two defies logic and common sense. [...]
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The last last supper
Posted on 26. Sep, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
Last week the state of Texas put the kibosh on providing a death row inmates a choice for a final meal. This happened after a State Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) got sick over the cost of the final meal request for one Lawrence Brewer. Last Wednesday, Brewer was put to death for the brutal, hate [...]
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Flirting with disasters
Posted on 19. Sep, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
In terms of natural disasters, the great state of Texas leads the pack. Since 1953, Texas has had 86 nationally declared disasters. These have come in the form of hurricanes, tropical storms, floods, freezes, tornados and most recently wildfires spurned by drought. But it’s hard to even consider the fires wild. Even though the drought [...]
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No time to reflect on day of remembrance
Posted on 12. Sep, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
Wise County’s emergency responders had little time to reflect on a day set aside to honor them. Sunday was Patriot Day, a time to remember those who died on 9/11 and to honor those who serve as our first line of defense against a host of possible tragedies. But our firefighters and law enforcement officers [...]
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reflections in a red moon
Posted on 22. Aug, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
An angry quarter moon rose red as Mars round midnight Sunday. The low eastern sky was not its usual deep purple, but black as a shadow on an ebony wall. A dark starless heaven punctuated by a bloodstain. A single, crescent-shaped drop oozing from a wound in reality’s fabric. The God of War superimposed its presence [...]
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Premature ejection announcement from Aggies
Posted on 15. Aug, 2011 by Brandon Evans.
Texas A&M misfired when premature announcements of the university bolting from the Big 12 (which oddly now only has 10 teams) to join the power ranks of the Southeastern Conference were announced by the New York Times and the ESPN on Saturday. After a meeting of SEC presidents on Sunday, the majority announced that they [...]