A Brief Aside

Do you think all the heated debate currently going on in Kerrville over the building of a proposed major new convention center and the wrangling over which group might win the right to build said center could possibly be related to the ongoing push in Austin to legalize casino gambling in Texas? Just a passing thought.

I like the definition of gambling as a tax on the mathematically challenged. As with the use of illegal drugs, criminals love to make gambling seem cool and popular in order to get as many victims hooked as possible. Believe me, there would not be so much interest in and infighting over who controls drug and gambling interests if vast sums of money were not involved. In the end, the house always wins.

In any case, this area doesn't need any more organized crime!

Issues of Commitment

Harvey Hildebrand recently introduced state legislation setting up a new facility for involuntary commitments here that has far less outside oversight than previous facilities used for this. At the same time, I received some threatening emails from my ex-husband.

When one of my children returned from visitation extremely frightened and upset and said my ex- was openly saying he intended to have me involuntarily committed, I immediately forwarded copies of the emails, a description of what my child had said, and copies of recently published info. on the new facility to state and federal law enforcement and asked them for protection. (Of course I received no response from them, but so far my ex- hasn't tried this, either.)

There have been persistent rumors around here for years about people being involuntarily committed long enough for others to gain control of their assets. Interestingly, a more recent newspaper article about the new facility detailed ongoing conflicts between law enforcement officers wanting to commit people to the facility and medical staff there refusing to accept patients who had not been thoroughly medically evaluated first. Update: A new newspaper article on the facility states that the staff was all "carefully hand-picked".