That was made official in 2021; more recently:

Texas Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, [has] authored a resolution to make the cannon the official state gun of Texas. On April 10, the resolution passed the Senate with a 28-2 vote.

Official gun, rather than handgun, which, again, Texas already has.

And most recently, Texas Sen. Vergil “Rip” McCoy, R-Beaver Creek, authored a resolution to make the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast the state’s official large-yield bomb.

Trashy Panama Beach, the very reddest part of the Redneck Riviera (‘Panama City Beach makes tailgating at a NASCAR infield appear hoity-toity.‘), is among the last truly gun-friendly spring break locations. While other once-popular killing fields, tired of blasting blood off main street, have launched police-state measures that make you think twice before mustering your M16, PCB, a short drive from supergangbanger Dothan AL, screams go ahead and unload ra cheah. Trash bars, hotels, and stores; gun-love; and a police force that doesn’t give a shit — it all adds up to the best spring break of your life uh ah mean death and yall come on down.

UD predicts PCB’s about to dump its police chief, who’s fucking up the fun, calling the gangbangers “stupid,” and naming/shaming town ultratrash spots (Hammerhead Fred’s) designed to make fifteen year olds with .950 JDJ Fat Macs feel at home. He’s, like, against all this, which will make the local merchants extremely angry, and they will demand his ouster.

… (background on Jetters here) will be Carrie Rivers, whose similar qualifications are described here.

UD calls Wyoming The Amy Winehouse State. Dark. Dark. The darkest. HALF in love with easeful Death? You don’t know the half of it.

State Song:

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody’s funeral, for there is no one to bury.

GO WYOMING!

I’ve had exactly nothing good to say about Hungary on this blog, but that changes today.

Tarrant: Where even the judges brandish firearms! At court!

In a quiet corner beside the lower deck, a hosta puts out circular shoots.

A neutral palette (grays, whites) makes the eye-popping yellow coverlet and its rich array of guns really stand out in this East Harlem bedroom. “They’re there during the day to make a statement,” says the owner of the apartment; “obviously, at night, I put them in my safe, unless I plan to be out using them.” The new Unsecured Firearms aesthetic has taken America by storm, and interior designers are rushing to be part of the movement. “The days of the good ol’ boy in rural Texas hanging the odd hunting rifle on the wall above the fireplace are over,” says Reka Farkash, principal at Farkash Armamental Designs. Farkash is known for her so-called AK Circles, where she stages a gun-owners’ AK47s in a rough circular pattern on dining tables and other surfaces.

However you arrange it, the point is to take the gun out of hiding and make it a prominent part of domestic American space.

… with my sister, on a ridiculously beautiful April Day in DC.

This is the fourth shooting [by a 15 to 17 year old] to happen on the Coronado Mall premises over the last year, explains an Albuquerque reporter; and it’s just a wee snapshot of the state with the nation’s highest crime rate.

No surprise, then, that New Mexico’s governor yesterday called in the national guard. Parts of Albuquerque are the wild west, and the gunslingers are fifteen years old.

Dude can’t help himself, and things get worse for him; but as long as he can play at a high level, things won’t get too bad.

Unlike his surly fictional precursor, he seems to have come from a stable loving middle-class sort of background; but he also seems mentally unstable, and guns/defiance look to be a crucial part of his shaky self-care.

Beyond all this, there’s his hugely powerful symbolic resonance in the gunsickest country in the world. Ja Morant is America’s gunsickness right out there on the world’s biggest screen for all the world to see. Look out, world, here we come!

… El Patio, an Argentine place we like, claiming that it’s soon going to be National Empanada Day, and they had a celebratory special on them tonight.

First we toasted to the memory of my Argentine Uncle Mario; then we chowed down.

[Conspiracy theorist] Kim Iversen… speculated on her [talk] show … that nefarious forces were deliberately spreading the measles in Texas to make Kennedy look bad.

“Did somebody go and release measles?” she asked.

… for public schools to use in issuing statements to parents when – as so often happens – students are found on campus with loaded guns. Either you call the weapon an “inappropriate item,” or you gesture vaguely in the direction of “police activity.”

Fort Worth ISD sent … a letter … to parents, reading in part, “our campus was briefly placed on lockdown due to police activity near the school.” The letter did not mention why there was police activity or explain that there were guns recovered. 

Three guns, from three tykes.

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UD proposes further euphemisms:

Extremely short words that have other meanings: GAT. ROD.

Extremely obscure words no one will recognize: HARQUEBUS. CULVERIN.

Regular readers know that UD‘s kid, La Kid, has worked at international consulting firm Hakluyt for some time. What you didn’t know, and what I didn’t know until I saw this piece in Architectural Record, is that their SF office (pictured), and I think all of their other offices, feature well-equipped bars.

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Photo © Bruce Damonte