Austin’s in the throes of influenza season. Grown people sound like babies with the croup and tiny children sound like tubercular old men. >>> “Be prepared” is the motto. Scouts from all over Texas were prepared, here to parade up Congress to the Capitol and meet with the governor this past Saturday. I was prepared, too. My camera was not. I love it when Austin plays host to visitors from all over the Lone Star State. I love seeing all the parents who spend at least one day, and perhaps two, of a precious weekend in escorting their scouting offspring to this big annual event, which never receives the publicity that it really should. I noticed that many of those in uniform were betaking themselves and their outdoor appetites straight to Threadgill’s. >>> Winning friends and influencing people sometimes seem not to be our mayor’s strong suit. A commencement speech he delivered at A&M in December elicited a two-column letter of outrage in the February issue of the Texas Bar Journal. Although A&M does offer transcripts of some graduation addresses, this is not among them. The letter-writer heard the address as “an unsolicited, unprovoked, and completely unwarranted diatribe against the legal profession,” reporting that “at one juncture, he called those in the profession ‘blood-sucking lawyers.’” He invites all who take exception to the remarks reported to write to Will Wynn, telling him why. >>> I received a free teaser issue of a fancy-pants magazine called Garden & Gun. Its “Below the Line” feature touts just-over Carnaval, calling Austin “an eclectic city.” That’s one way to describe us. Are we of interest to the gun side or the garden side of this publication? I can’t help but wonder. >>> But, then, I succumbed to the flu and it ate all my energy and half my brain-power for almost a week. The in-house expired cough-suppressant (a generic product, not the NyQuil of Alvin Crow “Blues” fame) was no good after January of the year 2000, so I probably last felt this bad an entire decade ago. It’s good to return to the land of the living in Austin.

Update 18 February: The local daily picks up on the mayoral anti-attorney diatribe today (byline Sarah Coppola, scroll down; in the hard copy this item falls under a “scuttlebutt” heading and is emphasized by being printed on a gray background), getting the name of the bar publication wrong but reporting that, although he refused to comment or “discuss the speech,” it has been learned that Wynn has sent a letter of apology. Said to be in it is this: “I am sorry if those comments upset anyone.” Isn’t that some of the well-known and commonly used language of false repentance?

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