When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963

George Interviewed on The Armadillo Podcast: a sneak preview

On Thursday, 9/15, George will be interviewed on The Armadillo Podcast and we're fortunate enough to have an "exclusive sneak preview" here on our blog.

Full disclosure:  We're hosting this podcast as an "exclusive" simply because George's eldest son Steven produces the show.  Still, George and Steven make for a funny conversation and it's worth the download, (even on a dial-up connection).

Says Steven:

"Our show is a weekly podcast of ostentatious interviews of Austinites famous and infamous, known and unknown.  The show's concept is that every week we try to convince my good friend Galia, an Israeli woman living way out in California, to move and live with us here in the land of the weird and the home of the armadillo.  And every week, she says "No, I can't move there because (insert lead-in to next week's show.)

"Example: If Galia says it's too hot here, the next week we interview a lifeguard at Barton Springs.

"But the show is really about the things that make Austin special.  It's an online radio postcard that says "Wish you were here," to all our friends abroad. 

"Does George convince Galia to move to Austin?

"Below is a link to the first part of the podcast.  Please come back on Thursday for our complete results show."

Click on the link below to download a teaser of Episode Two of the Armadillo Podcast.

Download ArmadilloPodcastTeaser.mp3

Heavenly Texas

Plagiarized and shamelessly rewritten by Bob Huffaker

The Archangel Michael found God resting on the seventh day and asked, "Where have you been?"

"Michael, I've made a planet that I'll call Earth, and it will be a place of balance."

"Balance?"

"Northern Europe will have opportunity and wealth but harsh weather, and southern Europe will be poor but sunny and pleasant. Some lands will have plenty of water, and others will be dry. Parched deserts will be hot, but the poles will be covered in ice."

"What's that down there?"

"Ah, that's TEXAS--Earth's most glorious place, with beaches, streams, hills, and forests. TEXANS will be handsome, funny,  intelligent, sociable, hardworking and high-achieving. And they will be diplomats and carriers of peace."

"What about balance, God? You said there would be balance!"

"Wait until you see the idiots I'm going to put in Austin."

Social Security and Baseball: A change is needed

By Bill Mercer

I was mulling over writing about Social Security, the inception I remember back in the mid-30's.

Could we have spent a hundred million dollars to have Saddam assassinated (?) instead of this ghastly carnage, the increasing danger of separation of  state vs evangelical religion, or why do we have 45 million people unable to have health insurance?

But instead I spent this past weekend assisting in the broadcasts of the Round Rock Express listening to a seminar on baseball from various baseball scouts, the men who REALLY know what is happening. Baseball's problems seem minor compared to those at the beginning of this page. But there is one problem that needs attention on the baseball field...and right now!

The college game must stop using aluminum bats and go back to the traditional and "real" wood bats. (Here's a blog about nothing but baseball bats.)

For one thing the game with college players has a pitiful sound when ball meets that chunk of metal. Surely the college game does not want to sound and look like Little League...but it does.I guess the claim is that the players break wood bats and not the al-u-min-ium (as the Canadians call it)  kind. But those metal things cost quite a bit and wood bats are relatively cheap. I am not kidding,  the appearance of the metal bats in the college players hands cheapens the image.

Take a look at the college world series  and LISTEN to the little pinging. And now that the college hierarchy as proclaimed there shall  be a twelfth regularly scheduled football game...they need to spend that extra money on wood bats. And that's for girls softball too. You know there is a successful summer wooden bat baseball league building in Texas. And one of the key ideas of that was the transition from college to the professional ranks, from aluminum to wood. I know of some good college players who were questioned about their being able to hit well with the real bats.

And it would be even better for the game if the high schools would also return to wood bats. And it is safer playing with wood than raw metal. I expect this to be done about as quickly as a college football  playoff for a real champion.

Now back to Social Security. It needs to be tuned up, not tuned out!