Another GACK on Suzanne Bellsnyder

I'm going to focus on personal reasons for the GACK, not professional; I've taken care of that angle elsewhere.

Per communication I've seen, she's peddling an op-ed by Hawk Dunlap for other newspapers besides hers to use.

Problem? One on the professional side; actually, a serious of connected issues there.

Who is Dunlap? 

He's a currently active candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission. (He also ran in 2024, as a Libertarian. I'll just leave that there for now.)

As for Dunlap the candidate? He's almost certainly better than GOP incumbent James Wright. Doesn't matter. 

Yes, he wants oil companies, especially the majors who buy up old wells of many independents when their money gets tight, to "do the right thing."

Mother Jones just did a semi-puff piece on him. Takeout:

Dunlap is well acquainted with the problem. For 30 years, he worked for oil and gas companies to fix and plug wells all over the world. “I enjoy the outdoors,” he explained. “I used to hunt. I fish, I scuba dive, I play golf. I’m not housebroke, so I’m not inside an awful lot. I care about land, I care about landowners’ rights, I care about water. If that makes me an environmentalist, then so be it. That’s a label that, you know”—his tone turned mocking—“‘Oh, you’re an environmentalist.’ Yeah, okay, I’m a tree hugger. I’ll hug any tree that doesn’t have thorns.”

Is he actually an environmentalist? Uhh, no. Does he care about climate change? Does he even think climate change is "real"? Probably not.

As for Dunlap thinking Chevron used to be "good guys"? Bullshit, as severe-weather venting at Permian natural-gas plants during Winter Storm Fern showed. Chevron is among listed companies.

As for this puffery:

Dunlap has become part of an unlikely band of folks living in West Texas who are trying to force the government and industry to address the abandoned oil well catastrophe. There’s Ashley Watt, the owner of Antina Ranch, who has sued oil companies, including Chevron, for the damage they allegedly did to her land. There’s Laura Briggs, whose family runs two local newspapers and who has been a critic of state regulators for years. There’s Schuyler Wight, a fourth-generation rancher, who for the past three years has traveled hundreds of miles to Austin almost every month to give officials a piece of his mind. And there’s Stogner, a take-no-prisoners attorney whose talent for making viral videos—including a campaign ad she filmed of herself straddling a pumpjack wearing nothing but star-shaped pasties and a cowboy hat—has gotten tens of thousands of people to pay attention to this complex issue.

Uh, no, Sharon Wilson and her fellow methane hunters are the real environmentalists. (Per the link immediately above, she notes that severe-weather venting happens in extreme summers, too.)  Yes, the folks listed above are addressing well blowouts. And, anything else?

Well, even with well blowouts, it's more personal than environmental, and MoJo at least gets Watt to admit it:

In Texas, where landowners often do not control the rights to the minerals under their property, and oil and gas companies regularly do, a unique political identity has emerged. “I’m not necessarily an environmentalist on all land, but I’m definitely an environmentalist on my land,” Watt said. “That is a very common flavor of West Texas landowner. As you can imagine, West Texas ranchers skew conservative. From an environmental perspective, they could probably care less about saving the whales, but they care a whole lot about their land.”

A Houston Chronic piece makes that even more clear, noting Watt is a "Houston energy entrepreneur," and that the site is inherited family property.

To add to this, MoJo author Molly Taft identifies herself as a "climate journalist," but the phrase "climate change" is nowhere in her story. She does once mention methane as a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. 

SO, why run a piece this long? 

It should also be noted, contra the implications of the article, that "split estates" are common in most oil and gas states, except, I believe, California and Alaska, and in Alaska, the North Slope is federal land. Feds can reserve mineral estate rights when selling surface land, too. And, the "mineral estate" means just that — coal, iron ore or gold, not just oil and gas. To be more technical, per this piece, there's a difference between mineral estate, ie, what's below the surface, and mineral rights, ie, exactly what a mineral estate owner can and cannot do to get at that estate. In general, throughout the US, a mineral estate has dominant rights position over the surface estate. Cleanup issues are worst with oil and gas drilling, but within that industry, alleged remediation lackadaisicalness is not limited to Texas.

As for the election? Dems have a candidate for the general. Greens? Nobody. Alfred Molison, who ran in 2024, move over to the Ag commissioner race. 

Finally, on Bellsnyder pushing Dunlap? "Not an environmentalist" would apply to her seemingly wanting the blank checks of Proposition 4 to keep overpumping the Ogallala Aquifer. Per a not-so-hot quip of hers, I don't know if she found the "right" to do that in her Constitution or her Bible.

 

Texas progressives talk elections and more

Off the Kuff has interviews with Harris County Judge candidates Annise Parker and Letitia Plummer.

Socratic Gadfly talked about the RRC stiffing Midland 

Neil at Houston Democracy Project posted on possible progress at Houston City Council about limiting non-safety traffic stops by HPD to lessen prospect of HPD contacting ICE & how you can be part of the discussion/debate at Council.

Pete von der Haar has a few bracing words for his fellow Gen Xers.

El Paso Matters reminds us that MLK's legacy was neither comfortable nor silent.

Isaiah Martin has a modest proposal for how to end the Trumpian obsession with Greenland.

The Texas Signal looks at the two upcoming special elections.

The Dallas Observer advises on minimizing your risk when filing ICE agents.

Lone Star Left got left behind. 

Top blogging of 2025

As with my monthly roundups, while these were the most read pieces of 2025, not all of them were written IN 2025. 

And, as with the monthly roundups, I'll note the original date of "evergreen" pieces. I'll also, if they are older than 2024, take a guess as to their ongoing, or renewed, popularity.

And, with that?

No. 10: "Fuck r/NationalPark for a duopoly tribalist ban." It was an additional piss-off because I had extensive facts to document the non-duopoly comment that got me banned, and because r/Texas had pulled the same shit not too much earlier. 

No. 9 came from early in 2025, just a couple of months into Trump 2.0's reign, and explains the title of the short piece: "The Resistance 2.0 wants to relitigate Russiagate 1.0." That said, Trump continues to give BlueAnon and Never Trumper Rethuglicans ammo for this, and no, MAGAts, not in a trolling way, but in an increasingly Trumpian stupidity way. 

No. 8 was political prognostication. "Oh, Canada, can the Liberals win again?" They and PM Mark Carney did indeed, but Canada lost in large part due to the utter implosion of the New Democratic Party, which saw the radioactivity of its previous confidence and supply agreement with Trudeau come home to roost. Meanwhile, for denizens of parliamentary democracies who laugh at, or scratch their heads over, the lengthiness of US presidential elections, why does it take a full year for the NDP to choose a new party leader, or over in Britain, a new party, the Your Party, the same amount of time to choose an official first party leader. In addition, if your country's upper house of government is not that much more democratic than the US Senate (looking at Canada, Great Britain, Germany and France for starters), you have additional lack of room to mock.

Speaking of mocking?

No. 7, "The REAL Footprints in the Sand," mocked indeed that hoary old Christian chestnut. 

No. 6 was one iteration from the weekly Texas Progressives blog roundup. I have no idea why it trended, but it did.

No. 5 was from way back in 2018, about my approval of the St. Louis Cardinals trading for Paul Goldschmidt. I'm guessing it trended because of him being let go by the Cards after the 2024 offseason, then signing a deal with the Yankees.

No. 4 was a brief post from last summer, "Trump is actually right on California's high-speed rail." 

No. 3? Cannabis is always a good hot topic. That said, while I said, or claimed, back in 2021, that there was "More pressure on Texas to loosen pot rules," the state has done no such thing other than to have Strangeabbott and Dannie Goeb get in a fight over THC gummies last summer. 

No. 2? "Three Dems on SCOTUS, no environmentalists," summarizes part of why I'm a non-duopoly voter. 

And the most popular post of last year?

.....

Drumroll ...

Was from 2019.

"Early 2020 Democratic presidential oddsmaking, desirability" ranked all halfway serious contenders on both, the latter ranking from a non-duopoly leftist point of view. I wasn't totally wrong on odds. Saint Bernard of Sanders was No. 1 on that for me, followed by Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala is a Cop tying for second and Dementia Joe in fourth. 

Bernie of course got shivved by a mix of Dear Leader and Harry Reid, who rallied the insiders around Dementia Joe at the same time. That said, as I documented elsewhere, Bernie showed his own balllessness in the campaign, which didn't help. Kamala got the token (it was) Veep nod, while Gillibrand disappeared. 

Snowmaggedon and slavery

Well, Snowmaggedon 2026 did not pan out. At least not as snow.

SLEETmageddon? Different story.

I’m kind of disappointed in some ways, actually.

Wouldn’t it have been interesting, just a year after we equalled or slightly surpassed the old one-day snowfall record for any date, to shatter it by 3 or 4 inches?

Of course, that combined with the coldest temperatures since Winter Storm Uri five years ago, would have led to other “interesting” things.

First would have been, would the Texas electric grid hold up this time?

Second would have been, who would Dan Patrick blame this time if it didn’t?

Third would have been, would the Texas Department of Transportation been broken instead of the electric grid ant the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, aka ERCOT?

I’m not throwing any shade at TxDOT plows or salt, sand and brine trucks. But, if we had gotten the early forecast worst-case scenario of 5 inches of snow on Friday followed by a foot on Saturday, there’s no way they could have fully kept up, as I see it.

So, WHY did we not get a foot of snow?

I think the answer is probably primarily due to one reason, the same reason the local County Commissioners Court declared a burn ban Jan. 12.

It’s too dry.

That breakthrough of the “polar vortex” was certainly strong enough, looking at how cold it got.

But in front of it, on the ground here in north Texas, and weather patterns from further south? There just wasn’t the ready moisture available to generate that much precipitation.

So, why did the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it’s subagency of the National Weather Service, and private forecasters like the Weather Channel or Weather Underground, not get it right earlier? (There’s big bucks in private forecasting, by the way. Weather Underground used to be owned by IBM; both companies are now owned by the same vulture capitalist private equity firm.)

I mean, this is not Troy Dungan and David Finfrock of long-ago Metromess TV news, dueling over weather porn and eyeballs.

I was worried, though.

And, I thought I would keep myself stocked up on food the easy way.

So, I figured I would pre-order a Domino’s pizza delivery for once every 4 hours during waking hours, from Friday evening through Sunday morning.

And, to make sure it would get delivered, I figured I would also pre-purchase a Domino’s delivery driver at a Uber slave market or something.

Wait, what? You can’t say that, can you?

Having just read a book of essays by the dean of Reconstruction historians, Eric Foner, yeah, my mind wandered a bit.

But, just think.

TxDOT could have plantation labor running the snowplows, maybe in conjunction with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice sending out convict labor. TxDOT wouldn’t “break” at all.
(I hear nervous laughter somewhere in the background.) The only thing that might upset this is small-government plantation owners not wanting their state governments to own slaves.

Picture Uber drivers, or food delivery drivers in general, at a slave labor pen next to fast food restaurants all in a cluster. Like next door to one another in Charleston, South Carolina. Or next door to one another just off the Mall and just down the road from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

(I hear more nervous laughter.)

OK, I will stop going down the road of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.”

But, there is a reason I did that abrupt switch.

Martin Luther King Day was earlier this month, in the middle of Black History Month. Too often, in my book, he gets too sanitized, including one famous phrase quoted out of context of the rest of the “I Have a Dream” speech. (At least the speech hasn’t been totally eviscerated by some “teach the opposing viewpoint” idea, like Carroll ISD and the Holocaust a few years ago, which was even before the most recent changes in Texas education guidelines.)

Let’s not yet turn away from this issue.

In the 1850s, many northern Democrats, trying to split the difference on slavery, supported the idea of popular sovreignty, or settlers in organized federal territories choosing on their own whether to be free territories, or slave territory, before statehood.

People like Stephen A. Douglas reassured people in Illinois that the west was way too dry to support plantation slavery.

Either a silly man or a lucky man was he.

After the canals started being built in Southern California, then after people started cheating on maximum farm size allowed by the Bureau of Reclamation, then cheating again after the law was loosened up, the hue and cry for foreign agricultural workers started.

It was the likes of Japanese and Filipinos at first. Then Mexicans, later augmented by other Hispanics from yet further south.

What if slavery were still around?

Don’t you think that many California corporate farmers would push for a change in the state’s “free-soil” status?

 

Science news: Oliver Sacks, the man who mistook bullshit for the truth

Maria Konnikova, late last year, riffing on a New Yorker piece, had a strong takedown of psychologist Sacks. Turns out he made up a bunch of both clients and case histories in his books — and like Jonah Lehrer and others, in New Yorker essays.

That New Yorker piece is based on author Rachel Aviv being gifted with decades of Sachs diaries and  correspondence by the Oliver Sachs Foundation. It shows a Sachs with other issues — acting-out sex when he decides to break things off with a European lover, major amphetamine use, followed by essentially a sublimated non-consummated relationship (on his part) with a counselor that he continued to see for decades.

As for the matter at hand? This:

Sacks wrote that “a sense of hideous criminality remains (psychologically) attached” to his work: he had given his patients “powers (starting with powers of speech) which they do not have.” Some details, he recognized, were “pure fabrications.” He tried to reassure himself that the exaggerations did not come from a shallow place, such as a desire for fame or attention. “The impulse is both ‘purer’—and deeper,” he wrote. “It is not merely or wholly a projection—nor (as I have sometimes, ingeniously-disingenuously, maintained) a mere ‘sensitization’ of what I know so well in myself. But (if you will) a sort of autobiography.” He called it “symbolic ‘exo-graphy.’ ”

A number of people at the Substack linked up top, and the Facebook comment where I saw it, have wondered just how much we've lost in terms of replication and related. 

Beyond what has been lost? A lot of Sachs' fictionalizations seem to involve a fair amount of psychological projection. There's a lot of that in "Awakenings."

Ultimately, there's a lot of sadness in Sachs' personal life, beyond this. I empathize. 

Homelessness and reinstitutionalization

The Observer has an "interesting" story on homelessness and housing — "interesting" that it minimizes to a fair degree GOVERNOR Ronald Reagan starting the deinstitutionalization of the seriously mentally ill and minimizes the degree to which reinstitutionalization might help. Much of the story is good, above all for rightly lambasting Monty Bennett, but that part is not. 

My rule of thumb has long been that approximately one-third of homeless are that way for problems outside their control, whether simply having too low of income (the Observer doesn't mention roommates, nor in today's world, a screening system for pairing people up with such) or things such as medical bankruptcy, one-third are due primarily to addiction, and one-third primarily due to mental illness. The second and third, of course, have some overlap.

This is not to deny that the world of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" didn't have problems. It certainly did. But, both in, theoretically, the operation of inpatient long-term mental health care housing today, and the variety of medications available today vs 50-60 years ago, we're generally not in that world.

Also, interestingly, the Observer didn't even talk about "housing first" outside the US. For me, when I started the story, Vancouver, British Columbia came immediately to mind.

But, back to the main problem. Mentally ill on the streets will NOT be medication-compliant. And shelters aren't well-trained in this. Period. And, of course, "housing first," if it means non-shelter housing, means mentally ill remaining medication-noncompliant.