Reggie Jackson has a potty mouth
The OKC Thunder hosted their former disgruntled backup point guard Friday night, and the results were good for Thunder fans, unless they have delicate ears.
Reggie Jackson, who backed up Russell Westbrook for three-and-a-half seasons, had a mediocre game against his former team, but he brought his A-game when it came to cuss words aimed at heckling fans (NSFW):
Yowzer! That’s the kind of hot heckle-blowback that fans can hope for when they sit in the Expensive Seats.
Jackson is having the best scoring season of his career so far, but his Pistons are just 8-9 through 17 games.
To rub salt in Jackson’s wounds, Westbrook and fellow superstar Kevin Durant dissed their former teammate by asking, “Who?” and generally pretending not to know who he was when asked about Jackson.
#Drama!
60 Minutes piece looks at Arizona executions
“The death penalty is barbaric. And I think we as a society need to come face-to-face with that. If we’re not willing to face up to the cruelty, we ought not to be doing it.”
— federal judge Alex Kozinski
That was the ultimate quote in Sunday’s 60 Minutes piece detailing Arizona’s history of messy lethal injections.
In the face of so much debate, drama and investigation about Oklahoma’s death penalty this fall, Bill Whitaker’s report on Arizona’s lethal injection woes is worth a watch.
Spoiler alert: The state purchased lethal injection drugs from a driving school in London. (NonDoc would embed the video here, but CBS’s robots prohibit displaying it in our “region,” whatever that means. So you’ll have to visit 60 Minutes’ site yourself.)
Of course, Oklahoma’s executions have been put on hold while Attorney General Scott Pruitt’s office completes an investigation into — among other things — the drugs used in the state’s lethal injections.
Good weekend for OU sports fans
Baker Mayfield threw for more than just 180 yards and two touchdowns against Oklahoma State on Saturday night: He also threw a major block on a Joe Mixon touchdown run that statisticians might credit as a “pancake” and overzealous announcers might have generously called a “slobber-knocker.”
The play immediately caused Heisman-trophy talk on Twitter for Mayfield, and it bolstered a player comparison made previously by ESPN personality Kirk Herbstreit: legendary NFL quarterback Brett Favre.
Favre was known for playing the game with a child-like exuberance that led him to do things like he did in the above video: complete a pass and run 40 yards downfield to block a linebacker.
For what it’s worth, the University of Texas defensive coordinator compared Mayfield to Favre in October, a month before Herbstreit, but Mayfield’s performance solidified the comparison.
But not only did OU sports fans get to see their football team capture its eighth (or ninth, depending on how you count) Big 12 championship Saturday night, they saw their men’s basketball team improve to 4-0 with a victory Sunday over the Wisconsin Badgers.
The OU women’s basketball team also won Saturday over Boston College. All in all, Sooner fans surely had an enjoyable weekend.
Corporation Commission bows to ONG
Back in October, Oklahoma Natural Gas customers received a notice about proposed rate increases. While public notice about the proposed rate increase was given, those in attendance may have have been disappointed to find out a settlement was reached before that public hearing.
Perhaps most miffed would have been the person who wrote the following note, which was left in an OKC-metro Walmart and then posted to Instagram:
The text reads as follows (all typos and misspellings are faithful to the original):
The Corporation Commission wants to raise your monthly gas bills. This is to make for their losses due to fracking and the drop in resent oil and gas prices.
And, they are attempting to do this by once again putting it on the working class-already struggling-citizens of Okla. Is this the fault of the people that they have not respected the environment? Is it our fault that they are not raking it in on gasoline prices lately? Do we look like their Mother?
On November 18, 2015 at 10:30 am there will be a court proceeding to determine such action. The public is welcome to attend to make comment. If you can’t attend please call your State Representative or e-mail them with your thoughts.
Then, a handwritten note runs up the side of the printout. It reads: “Did they help you buy gasoline when it was 4.00 a gallon?”
Ostensibly, the handwritten note was penned by the same author of the typed part, since it shares the same tone and also the literary elements of rhetorical questioning.
But authorship is irrelevant.
Whoever wrote it can at least take some quantum of solace in the fact that ONG will not be granted the full rate hike of $50.4 million they had originally requested in July. Instead, if approved, rates would increase by only $30 million, or about $3 per residential customer per month, which ONG claims it deserves for infrastructure updates.
Which reminds us: When is that PUD 260 meeting going to resume? The OCC website lists a docket for special meetings out to Dec. 2, but nothing about the tumultuous AT&T case is listed. NonDoc remains committed to following this issue and will relay any updates as we learn about them.
Mark Hyman drops some science on Congressional budgeting
If you’ve ever seen Mark Hyman’s “Behind the Headlines” segment on OKC’s Fox 25, you might have taken him for a permanent member of that station’s news team.
You would be wrong.
Hyman is actually a commentator for about two dozen network affiliates within the Sinclair Broadcast Group, according to information on his website.
Which may explain why his commentary on Thanksgiving night was so different from many local TV opinion pieces.
It was the kind of well-thought out, incisive and complete commentary that many talking heads would aspire to create. Hyman’s televised appearances seem devoid of partisan favor, as he could be seen on a CBS affiliate in Albany, N.Y., just a few hours before appearing on an NBC affiliate in Reno, Nev.
On the night in question, Hyman was bemoaning the changing nature of spending bills from Congress, pointing out the “federal government has had only five balanced budgets in the past 50 years. And none since the first year of George W. Bush’s presidency.”
With “omnibus spending bills” as the new norm, the only change will come once “principled men and women who govern honestly” replace the current crop of corruption-prone cronies, Hyman said.
Further, while his TV spot was accompanied with some simple graphics, the online transcript offers a bit more info with the addition of some links.
If News 9’s Kelly Ogle is offering his $0.02, Hyman is dropping straight dime-pieces across the country.
