Texas Never Whispers

Texas. The name itself conjurs up a wide variety of images, from prairies, to cowboys, to Austin, to Amarillo, to rednecks, to inner city gangsters, to Willie Nelson, to oil. Sobriety and an overzealous enforcement of a public intoxication law have never been part of my mind's eye view.

In what I can only describe as a startling turn of events, Texas police will now perform statewide sweeps of bars to arrest drunk people, no joke!

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.

The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission's Carolyn Beck.
Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, Beck said.
The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

Sounds like they have taken the idea of pre-emptive warfare from their favorite son (outside of Austin,TX that is), also know as "W-The President," and applied it to drunk driving.

I have mixed impressions of Texas, always have. I've known some great people from there, but it also seems like a place I should never even visit sometimes. I did drive through panhandle alone one night, listening to a radio show where the families of prison inmates spoke messages to their loved ones on the inside...for 3 hours.

If there is one thing I picture myself doing on a visit to Texas, it's getting drunk in a bar, who's with me? There may be an upside, maybe I was destined to get beaten by a gang of drunken cowboys at a bar in El Paso.

If this practice spreads to other states in our increasingly ass tightening union, Night Planet will be "from off the streets of Barcelona." Hell, it will be at some point anyway. I know within my heart that while smoking bans have extended into Europe, a ban on getting drunk will never fly. God bless you Europe.

"There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they're intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car," Beck said. "People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss."

Natural selection Texas, a key element of evolution...oh, I get it.