Derek Chauvin has been formally convicted of murdering Houstonian George Floyd during his tenure in the Minneapolis Police Department. On Tuesday, the jury found him guilty on all counts. Chauvin’s bail was revoked, and he was remanded into custody. He will be sentenced roughly eight weeks from now and faces up to 40 years in prison.

The conviction of a white police officer for killing a Black man is a monumental shift in the racist justice paradigm of America, though harsh reality came immediately crashing back into focus as Ma'Khia Bryant and Andrew Brown Jr. were dead by police bullets within 24 hours of the verdict. Everyone is still understandably raw, but here’s a harsh truth that needs to be said.

Prison rape jokes about Derek Chauvin are not funny. No, not even if you frame one as dropping the soap, and certainly not if you consider it justice.

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There are two reasons to lock these anti-chuckles away for good. The first is that claiming someone deserves rape is just going to re-victimize the people around you who have been sexually assaulted. It’s a known fact that many rape victims experience blame from society for their own assaults, everything from wearing a revealing outfit to drinking at a party to, well, being in prison. Victims internalize that. It eats them away from the inside, making them feel dirty and broken.

Victim blaming shifts the burden of preventing rape to the people who experience it, further marginalizing them. It also tends to treat rape as some sort of natural force that just occurs instead of the intentional actions of individual people who should be stopped. When sexual assault survivors hear that you consider a particular rape a fitting experience for someone, it makes them wonder how much of their own attack was “justified.” It opens the door to a host of horrible feelings built by the way our society badly handles the whole subject.

I get that people are hurting now but triggering victims with enthusiastic pro-rape statements is not going to bring about social justice. It’s not going to make the world a better place. It just forwards the idea that there is good rape.

Which brings us to the second point. A lot of people have this fantasy that particularly evil people will be brutalized by other prisoners as a form of extra punishment. The most common example is that child molesters do hard time as other inmate’s sexual plaything in a kind of twisted justice.

Y’all, this is a myth. There is no good rapist who is holding in his rape urges until the properly evil orifice comes along. This is not a sodomy-themed episode of Dexter. Roughly half of people who are in American state prisons are non-violent offenders, and of course about 60 percent of them are people of color. People in prison (including the guards) who want to rape others are not going to altruistically stick to the worst evildoers. They’re going to do what rapists have always done; find the easiest target and keep doing it until someone physically stops them.

We should not condone rape in prisons as part of punishment. You don't have to weep if it happens to a monster, but you don't have to cheer or look away from the larger problem, either. If a judge sentenced a person to ten years of incarceration plus additional random sexual assaults, we would all be (hopefully) horrified. Why, then, should we cheer it when it happens clandestinely? I know why. It’s because rape culture is always in the back of our heads poisoning our brains, particularly in moments of high emotion and vulnerability.

We want justice after seeing Floyd brutally, heinously murdered slowly before our eyes, but that justice will not be carried out by a rapist. It will just increase the amount of rape in the world, and openly cheering for it to happen to Chauvin will make it easier for the next prison rapist attacking a person you don't even know to get away with it. That’s where those jokes lead. Please, stop it.

Random sentiments plastered to wrong way signs by our more… exuberant residents are pretty common in Houston. Most of them are trying to sell you sham health insurance or buy your diabetic strips. However, one person has gone the extra length to cover the city in one angry screed: BIDEN IS A TRAITOR TO AMERICA.

I caught the sign in the picture above at Hwy 290 and 34th Street on both sides of the freeway. According to Reddit, the signs have been out up all over the city, including the Galleria, Oak Forest, City Centre, and the Heights, all in the same handwriting. As you can see from the photos I took of them, attempts have been made to remove them or at least the name Biden with varying success.

Now, I speak Unhinged Reactionary Right-Wing Douchebag fluently, which you learn by ordering a physical copy of Rosetta Stone and shooting a hole through the O while munching a wad of bacon. As such, these signs are not nonsense. They are code.

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Biden is not actually a traitor the way most of us would understand term, such as for example a major figure in a presidential campaign handing over data to a foreign power that is actively involved in a cyberattack on America. No, the treason is entirely of a spiritual nature. It is a betrayal of a certain point of view.

And neither is this.

Photo by Jef Rouner

I’ve written before that reactionary right-wing accusations of communism are mostly an excuse used to justify the violence that those people already wished to do, and this sentiment is related to that. Lately, the prevalent theory on the right is that Biden has somehow sold out American interests to the Chinese Government. The evidence for this is nebulous, ever-shifting, and nowhere near as solid as, I don’t know, directly asking leader of the Chinese Communist Party for help in re-election.

Sadly, facts don’t care about feelings, and the signs we’re seeing around the city are emotional appeals for us to subscribe to a broken world view. The idea that Biden is a traitor is blatantly absurd, unless you view any abandonment of an America First mindset to be treasonous. Any hope that the fall of Donald Trump would bring the nationalist rhetoric down to a manageable temperature died in the attempted insurrection of the U.S. Capitol and was buried when state congresses like ours declared war on voting rights.

There’s no going back to the way things were. Trump allowed for the full expression of an entitled rage that had been held in check by the thinnest membrane of decency and respect for liberal democracy for many years. Now that folks have seen that win, at least in the short term, we can expect a backlash that makes the last ten years look like a tranquil period of reflection.

That’s what these signs really say. They want you to know that none of this is over, and the people most angry about it are perfectly happy to make that known all over the city. These are warning shots, and we ignore them at our peril.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control officially relaxed its guidelines for when U.S. residents should wear face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on Tuesday, issuing new rules that allow for some newfound flexibility in outdoor settings, especially for fully vaccinated folks as the agency continues to encourage non-vaccinated residents to get inoculated.

The CDC’s official stance as of Tuesday is that “Outdoor visits and activities pose minimal risk to fully vaccinated people themselves or to those around them,” so fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks outside in most situations.

However, the CDC still recommends vaccinated people wear masks outside if they’re attending a big crowded event like a live performance, parade or sporting event where it’s impossible to socially distance. The CDC guidelines also state that the fully vaccinated should keep wearing masks when indoors.

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The CDC says mask wearing outside is still encouraged for the non-vaccinated in most situations.

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In a White House speech celebrating the new mask guidelines, President Joe Biden urged people who still haven’t been vaccinated to get a shot as soon as possible.

“It’s never been easier. And once you’re fully vaccinated, you can go without a mask when you’re outside and away from big crowds,” Biden said Tuesday.

States that still required mask use outdoors like California, Massachusetts and New York quickly lifted those requirements once the CDC’s new recommendations were made public. That didn’t happen in Texas, of course, since Gov. Greg Abbott had already lifted his statewide mask regulations in mid-March, and had already prohibited local officials from enforcing mask rules of their own.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner celebrated the new CDC mask announcement Tuesday, calling it “an accomplishment we all share thanks to those of us who already made the choice to get vaccinated.”

“As more people get vaccinated,” Turner continued in a statement, “the CDC will continue loosening its guidance on who needs to wear a mask and when they should be used,” a not so subtle hint to those who don't like masks that the best way to get us closer to a maskless future is to hurry up and get vaccinated, especially now that walk-up vaccine appointments are widely available across the greater Houston area.

Turner also confirmed that “The City of Houston will require people to continue to wear face masks inside municipal buildings like City Hall and the George R. Brown Convention Center.”

Even as federal mask guidelines have loosened, the number of vaccinated Houston area residents continues to rise and the number of locals suffering from COVID-19 has fallen significantly from the troubling spikes of a few months ago, Harris County still remains at its highest coronavirus red alert designation according to the coronavirus threat level system County Judge Lina Hidalgo implemented in the summer of 2020. The county’s official recommendation remains that people should stay home unless absolutely necessary, guidance that clearly hasn’t been followed by the majority of county residents for months now.

Hidalgo has been criticized for not moving to lower the local threat level, including by Republican County Commissioners Jack Cagle and Tom Ramsey, who have been attending Commissioners Court meetings in-person together at the county’s office while Hidalgo and her Democratic colleagues keep dialing-in from home.

According to the current metrics, Harris County still has a ways to go to get out of red alert-mode.

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Of the five indicators recommended by Harris County Public Health to determine the local threat level, three of them have improved enough to warrant a potential rollback: total countywide COVID-19 hospitalizations, the percent of hospital beds full with coronavirus patients and the trend of new daily cases have all been moving downward on average over the past 14-days.

However, Harris County’s two-week average for daily new COVID-19 cases per day is still too high according to the county’s guidelines, and the county’s two-week average coronavirus test positivity rate is at 10.6 percent, higher than the county’s 5 percent threshold for lowering the threat level.

Until all five of those last two metrics improve — or the county revamps how it calculates the local threat level — Harris County will still officially be in the red alert zone.

Taking time out from his continuing barrage of criticism aimed at President Biden and how he’s handling immigration and the border, Texas Governor Greg Abbott Wednesday announced that the state is finally releasing $11.2 billion in one-time federal stimulus money for the state’s public schools.

Making the announcement along with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and Speaker Dade Phelan, Abbott said the funds will be applied over the next three years under grants overseen by the Texas Education Agency. Beyond that, there’s still another $7 billion in federal stimulus money, with still no word from the state about how that will be applied.

The stimulus money is designed to help schools across Texas with all the students who haven’t doing well in the pandemic-inspired conditions which for many meant online classes, social isolation and a loss of the usual rites of passage like graduation ceremonies. And then there’s a whole other group of students who simply opted out from school entirely.

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Several education groups had been critical of the delay in passing on the funds, saying they needed the money now to help shore up their operations after unanticipated budget expenditures because of COVID-19. The Texas State Teachers Association, commenting after the Texas Senate presented its first budget proposal which didn’t include any of the federal funding, earlier released a statement from TSTA President Ovidia Molina saying the federal money was not intended to replace state money and it should not remain unspent while districts throughout the state struggle to meet their students’ needs.

A sliding scale determines the amount of disbursement to every district. That means that a district like Houston ISD receives more money – it will receive about $800 million — than districts with a lower percentage of low-income families.

In response to the state’s announcement, the HISD press office released a statement saying: “When we prioritize education funding, we make a statement that we are investing in our children, our communities, and our economic future. The Houston Independent School District commends Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Speaker Dade Phelan for recognizing the hardships and loss of learning that our students and staff have faced during this pandemic. The allocation of more than $800 million in federal dollars to HISD shows their commitment to helping us recover, and we are grateful for the funding. This will give district administrators and the HISD Board of Trustees an opportunity to build a robust budget for the upcoming school year that will address our priorities.”

In a statement released by Abbott, even as he announced these and other funds coming from the federal government, he complained about “The complicated nature of the federal maintenance of effort requirements.” At another point, speaking about the $5 billion the state earlier received from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriation (CRRSA) Act, he noted that this and other legislation passed by Congress “came with significant strings attached.”

Clearly, at least in response to a Democratic president, Republican Abbott does not abide by the axiom “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

In the same press release, Abbott touted the state’s own work to increase education funding which during the 2019-20 school year rose by more than $5 billion from the year before.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back on the freeway, the Houston area once again rolls out the red carpet of crazy. Normally, traffic warnings might include freeway closures, hazardous chemical spills, hundreds of nighttime bicyclists or people stopping in the middle of the highway for a marriage proposal (we wish we were kidding). All frustrating and weird, but mostly avoidable and routine in the fourth largest city in the country.

But, 2020, despite a lack of traffic thanks to the pandemic, was still one of the most deadly years on Houston-area roadways in quite sometime. And it looks like 2021 is going to be just as anomalous.

In the first third of the year (yes, we are already through a third of 2021), we've had more than our share of Florida level insanity.

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First, there are the simple things like the frequent closings of the I-69 at the West Loop interchange as they work on a long-term plan to fix what has been one of the most accident-prone stretches of road in the entire state. Parts of it have already opened thanks to extra time for closures during the pandemic, but we still have quite a ways to go at one of the busiest traffic spots in the city.

If that weren't enough, we have Interstate 45 and the fight that continues to rage over its expansion and widening. Groups from all sides including the city and county have been battling over the plans set in motion by TxDOT for one of the most highly anticipated and ambitious freeway construction plans ever.

Spots within the inner city have balked at the plan that would impact hundreds of businesses and residents along the corridor. Many of the areas most drastically affected are low income. The new infrastructure plan put forth by the Biden administration has promised to help reconnect areas divided by highways, something that was traditionally done through impoverished areas and neighborhoods where residents are mostly people of color.

However, those who support the plan, particularly those who live in the suburbs, have pushed back against the city and county, and the area's regional transportation recently gave the thumbs up for the plan. It seems we can't even agree on how to eliminate traffic.

Oh, and did we mention 45 north at Quitman will be closed the next two weekends? Good luck with that.

But those are the kinds of things we expect living here. We don't always plan for things like flaming Teslas.

On a recent Saturday night in The Woodlands, a pair of riders (more on that in a moment) were killed when the Tesla they were in hit a tree. If you are thinking, "Was the driver not injured?" you'd be forgiven because the Tesla in question had no driver. It was driverless. Even more startling, the car apparently burned for hours thanks to the electric batteries that power the vehicle.

It is as tragic as it is completely bizarre. Investigators are trying to determine what happened, but Tesla is disputing that no one was in the driver's seat and that autopilot could even be engaged given the conditions at the time.

Finally, we have news that SH-288 is apparently falling apart. Giant cracks emerged on 288 heading south at the South Loop, the very area that has been undergoing construction for years now. The cracks are believed to be structural failings, which seems pretty bad since it is so new. We cannot help but think about movies where the earth splits open during an earthquake.

Look, none of this is Hollywood disaster-level awful. This isn't Volcano, where Tommy Lee Jone and Anne Heche must save Los Angeles when a dormant volcano under the La Brea tar pits erupts (we are NOT kidding), but it is Houston and just about anything is possible these days.

Be safe out there.