This just in from Austin!
As many of you aware, thanks to janet strange, the Austin Kossacks are working hard to make sure the blogging community is an effective and important part of DemFest this weekend in Austin.
The Republicans have launched an insidiuos attack designed to stop us in our tracks, but we have foiled Tom DeLay!
Thanks to the intrepid reporting of John Kelso of the Austin American-Statesman we were alerted Tuesday morning to the presence of a ten foot python spotted swimming in Shoal Creek a few yards from the Othniel apartment. Immediatley I made the connection between this snake and Tom DeLay.
Kelso reports:
Bill Moore says it was a week ago today when he saw the python swimming down Shoal Creek.
“It stuck its head out of the water, and then it went out on the bank,” said Moore, a nurse at the Travis County Jail. He was standing on the bridge over Shoal Creek on 10th Street near Lamar Boulevard about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. “That’s when I saw the size of its body. It looked like it was about 10 feet long.”
After noting the City of Austin, claiming Shoal Creek is a natural habitat for the Python, refused to take action regarding the Python when Moore alerted the City to its presence, Kelso, who is really on top of developments such as this in Austin, quoted a Biologist whom he had interviewed in preparing his report:
Shoal Creek is not natural habitat for pythons, said Andy Price, a biologist for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.
“It might be natural habitat — if it was in the Philippines,” Price said. He figures the snake is probably an escaped pet “or deliberately released, one or the other.”
It was Kelso’s report that the python might deliberately have been released which really got my radar going. Knowing Tom DeLay’s connection with Snakes, and being aware of his past career as an exterminator, thanks to Kelso’s warning I was fully prepared for the threat, anticipating an attack from DeLay’s Python during one of my frequent treks across the 10th Street Bridge over Shoal Creek to the local 7/11 where I restock my Milk Duds supply.
However, DeLay and the Python had even more invidious designs. This morning I awoke to find my downstairs flooded after the toilet apparently had been broken when the Python slithered through the sewer system to launch DeLay’s assault on this Austin Kossacks’ computer by damaging my electical system. The preparations for the Bloggers’ Caucus are at a peak, and knocking out even a single Austin Kossack’s computer would have proven devastating to us.
DeLay and his snake underestimated this Austin Kossack however. I may have had my law office destroyed by the Tornado which struck downtown Fort Worth a few years ago, and lost a computer in the fire which gutted my first Apartment after fleeing the Forth Worth tragedy for Austin, but floods I can handle. It has been my lot in life to experience epiphany in solidarity with the Prophet Jonah at the base of the mountains under sea rather than with Moses on the mountain tops, and I knew the experience would one day prove useful.
While my son Zane made a valiant attempt to stem the damage when he returned last night from patrolling Sixth Street in search of unregistered voters (at least that is what Zane told me as his Dad he was doing), it was the newest Austin Kossack, Austex54, who arrived at 6 a.m. when summoned with a wet vac and stayed the damage before the computer and the electrical system could be affected who actually beat back DeLay’s snake. Politcal activism and Kossack solidarity can express itself in often unexpected ways, and together Austex54 and I thwarted DeLay’s attack.
DeLay’s interest was probably piqued by the fact the Austin Kossacks are featuring an attempt to unseat DeLay’s clone and crony, Lamar Smith (R-Texas, 21) at the Caucus, as well as focusing on taking back the Texas House which DeLay’s unprecedented efforts recently reduced to Republican control, by having Mark Strama (D-Austin, HD 50) address the Bloggers’ Caucus. John Courage, whose very name inspired my defense against the Python, who is seeking to unseat Smith as Sixth Street’s Representative in Congress, and Andy Brown, who has announced for HD 48, a close district currently held by Todd Baxter (R-Austin) are personally attending the Caucus Friday Afternoon. David Van Os, Democratic Candidate for Texas Attorney General has also committed to be personally present. Bloggers from across Texas and the nation are going to have an opportunity to interact with representatives of the campaigns of Barbara Ann Radnofsky (US Senate), Chris Bell (Governor), LGRL (The pending Marriage Amendment), and Judge Charlie Baird (Travis 299th Judicial District Court) as well, so you can see how it important it was to DeLay to send his Python on this mission.
The Austin Kossacks will continue to monitor Kelso’s column in order to thwart the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Already he has alerted us not only to the Python, but also to the invidious attempt by the Legislature to regulate Sexy Cheerleading, and the Young Republican’s effort by arranging maid service for wealthy college kids to stifle activism among Democratic Youth by correlatively increasing the clutter in the Young Dems’ Dorm Rooms at UT and Texas A & M, and thereby impede the Democrats’ access to their computers. We are on top of the latter situation and will work with the University Democrats from UT to beat back additional threats from the Young Republicans.
But for now, DeLay’s Python has returned to Shoal Creek, and the threat has been averted. I’ll continue to watch for it on my Milk Duds forays though.
