May 6, 2023 On Cinco de Mayo, Mississippi hosted the daily mass shooting event. While the body count was low (1 dead, 6 injured), it still was terrifying for the people just trying to enjoy a local restaurant. Earlier in the week, Georgia had hosting duties with 1 dead and 4 injured in an Atlanta medical center waiting room. Today’s mass casualty event was (of course) in Texas at an outlet mall in Allen. There are at least 9 people dead, including children. I imagine the United States is the only country that must specify a “mass shooting event” (4 …
Collin County Politics: Secure the Good for Us All
August 9, 2022 Picture: CCDP Local Politics Director, Dr. Misty Hook, and MADC Board Member, Julie Luton, at the Cooke County Democratic Party for an outreach presentation on growing their local Democratic Party. They were also there supporting their dad, Denny Hook, who’s running for Cooke County Judge. Covid Update: Collin County has 243,505 confirmed Covid cases. That’s 2,886 more cases than I reported last week and 1,530 of our Collin residents have died (4 additional deaths). Our transmission level is still High. Monkeypox Update: If we don’t get our public health system under control, soon this column might consist …
Collin County Politics: Embrace the Struggle
July 5, 2022 Picture: McKinney Area Democratic Club car in the July 4th Parade. Covid Update: Collin County has 228,308 confirmed Covid cases. That’s 1,142 more cases than I reported last week and 1,516 of our Collin residents have died (2 additional deaths). As you know, people not reporting their positive home tests are skewing our numbers. However, according to the Department of Labor (which keeps tabs on Covid transmission rates around their field offices), Collin County has moved into the Medium transmission category. In an interesting twist, that’s just us. Denton and Dallas counties are both still Low. That …
Collin County Politics: What Kind of World Do You Want?
June 21, 2022 Picture: Hundreds braved the heat to celebrate Pride with Drag Queen Bingo, an event put on by the McKinney Area Democratic Club. Covid Update: Collin County has 224,007 confirmed Covid cases. That’s 1,565 more cases than I reported last week and 1,510 of our Collin residents have died (no deaths). We’re holding our own but there are still risks, especially of long Covid. Although not enough is known about long Covid, a recent study showed that women are more likely to develop it than men. Of course, we are. It’s not enough that women in the United …
Collin County Politics: The Gun Edition
May 31, 2022 Picture: Plano’s Jenna Royal speaks with a reporter at the rally outside the NRA meeting in Houston. Like many of you, I felt hopeless after hearing about the gun massacre in Uvalde, especially since it came on the heels of the gun massacre in Buffalo. I don’t know if I even have it within me to hope this time will be different. I naively thought we as a nation would do something after Sandy Hook. We clearly don’t care about killing adults but I thought we’d at least care about massacring children (especially the party of “family …
Collin County Politics: New Year, New Momentum
January 11, 2022 Covid Update: Collin County has 158,256 confirmed Covid cases. That’s 21,998 more cases than I reported in the 3 weeks since I last tracked cases and 1,227 of our Collin residents have died (an increase of 29 people). Remember how I said omicron is coming? Well, it’s here and it’s a doozy. If you think you’ve been exposed or are experiencing symptoms, I’d tell you to get tested but good luck finding one that doesn’t have a huge wait. And if you’re uninsured in Collin County, you’re definitely on your own. That’s our tax dollars not working …
Collin County Politics: The Rumbling of the Volcano
December 14, 2021 Covid Update: Collin County has 135,270 confirmed Covid cases. That’s 1,617 more cases than I reported last week and 1,190 of our Collin residents have died (an increase of 15 people who died since last week). Just because the death rate is down is no reason to get complacent! The word from skilled nursing facilities is that post-Covid patients – almost all unvaxxed – are overtaxing their resources, including lots of healthcare provider burnout. Patients are spending months recuperating and are dealing with negative effects to a number of areas, including their kidneys, lungs, and heart. They’re …
Collin County Politics: There’s No Bottom
October 5, 2021 Covid Update: Collin County has 125,057 confirmed Covid cases. That’s 2,447 more cases than I reported last week and 1,036 of our Collin residents have died (an increase of 32 people gone in 1 week). Delta cases may be trending down but we’re not out of the woods yet. One silver lining of Covid is that it’s brought awareness to how many of our systems are badly broken. While this is tragic and enraging, it’s still good to know because the first step in doing a course correction is always recognition of the problem. Our healthcare system …
Collin County Politics: It’s Getting Ugly
August 3, 2021 Commissioners Court: I hope you all ate your Wheaties! Last week was the annual budget workshop for the commissioners and it was eye-opening. I haven’t even gotten all the information from most of the budget talks and there’s already so much to discuss that I won’t get to it all. I’ll try to hit the highlights though. Before I get started, I have to respond to something that happened in the regular meeting on the 26th. During public comments, Susan Fletcher reacted to a complaint about Collin County not providing adequate healthcare for our indigent population (which …
Collin County Politics: Issues in Policing
July 28, 2021 Commissioners Court: As the commissioners prepare for their upcoming budget discussions, this meeting was taken up by the Lifepath Budget Report (which was brief) and by a presentation on law enforcement compensation (which took over 3 hours). While law enforcement is essential, it should not be vastly more important than our mental health entity. Yet this seems to be the case. I shouldn’t be surprised – after all, every single commissioner is a Republican and we all know how little they value mental health – but you’d think they’d at least try for a little balance. The …
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