Texas Town Spends $60 Million on High School Football Stadium, Cares Not What Jokes Others Make
Texas. It remains to be proven that everything is bigger down there, but after the town of McKinney approved a bond for a ridiculous amount of money to build a 12,000-seat high school football stadium, one thing is certain: The residents of that state don’t care what other people think of them, which is commendable in some ways. According to
USA Today , McKinney’s $62.8 million new stadium will be the most expensive high school stadium in the country, surpassing the $60 million and $62.5 million facilities in Allen and Katy, Texas, respectively. Opponents of the mega-stadium note that the district involved will spend more money on the stadium than on any improvements to school buildings in the district by a pretty wide margin. The stadium deal seems like a weird way to invest educational funds, given that
Education Week just ranked Texas 43rd out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in its Quality Counts 2016 report. However, stadium supporters noted that Texas now ranks No. 1 in the country in most expensive football stadiums and most executions, and that should count for something, too.
Good Folks of the Internet Offer Helpful Assistance with George Zimmerman’s Punk-Ass Gun Sale
There really isn’t a way to make light about how Trayvon Martin was shot and killed for walking through a neighborhood in which a racist volunteer neighborhood watcher lurked, and then the trigger-puller didn’t have to get punished like a black person would for doing the same to a white person. Part of the aftermath of this “Of course it happened in Florida” tragedy is that George Zimmerman somehow seemed likely early this week to profit by using the internet to auction off the gun he used to shoot Martin. That’s when solid internet bros using names like “Racist McShootface,” “Weedlord Bonerhitler” and “Donald Trump” drove the price of the murder weapon up with huge bids, eventually hijacking the auction and forcing it to be halted. When the internet was first created, computer scientists tried to envision all the possible uses and implications of this technology. However, not even the most gifted prognosticator could foresee the importance of the roles that heroes like Racist McShootface and Weedlord Bonerhitler would play in it.
Historic Mosaic Pieces Coming to a Convention Center Near You
Those cool-looking 20-by-20-foot glass tile mosaic murals of old-timey Cincinnatians putting in work making soap and steel and stuff that have been featured in two terminals at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport for a long time are heading back to Cincinnati. That means air travelers will have to stare at something else while waiting to check in with ticketing agents for departing flights and act less drunk and/or full of pills than they really are. Originally created in 1933 by Winold Reiss for the train concourse at Union Terminal that we somehow hardly use at all anymore, these six pieces are going to now be featured at the Duke Energy Convention Center downtown. Now that this bit of airport-area art has been settled, the next matter to be resolved is deciding if that sculpture you see on the way to CVG that looks just like the tail end of a crashed plane sticking out of the water should be removed or if life jackets should be strewn about the water surrounding it to give passersby a more authentic premonition of aviation death before they get on their planes.
President Obama: Let Students Use the Bathroom They Need to Use
Years from now it’s going to be hard for historians to sum this era up. They’ll be like, “At this point, mankind had the most developed technology, health care and science ever seen, but they also argued a lot about which bathrooms people should be allowed to use.” This week, the Obama administration issued a broad directive instructing every public school district in America to let transgender students use the bathrooms they feel they belong in. Republicans, and the type of people who support the discriminatory laws in North Carolina and Mississippi, were predictably upset by Obama’s decree and promised to keep making bathroom use a thing we have to talk about in the Year of Our Lord 2016. People who aren’t scared of or interested in how other people use the bathroom would like the American government to move away from discriminatory bathroom legislation and instead move toward decreeing a minimum ply toilet paper that cheap and immoral employers must provide for their employees.
Ohio Policeman Gets Confused by How ‘Shop with a Cop’ Program Was Supposed to Work
There are many upstanding police officers who are good people, but the ones who are not are better at making the news. That said, an officer from Richfield, Ohio’s police department really stepped in it this week after being charged with stealing more than $26,000 from the “Shop with a Cop” program he was in charge of. Michael Simmons’ downfall began shortly after the Ohio Attorney General’s Office received a tip from the chief of police about several unauthorized financial transactions from the program’s bank account. Richfield’s program was intended to help underprivileged children and forge positive bonds with police, but instead it largely served for Simmons to purchase sporting event tickets, gift cards, electronics and other goods. After Simmons gets out of jail for stealing thousands of dollars from children, the Richfield Police Department is considering bringing him back on the force and renaming future charitable programs “Steal with a Shit Heel.”
CONTACT ISAAC THORN: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in May 18-25, 2016.
