Ides of March

It looks like it might happen today. Here is from Channel 13 news:

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — ABC13 has confirmed the Texas Education Agency will put rumors to rest on Wednesday. Commissioner Mike Morath will announce what the agency plans to do with the Houston Independent School District, as the possibility of an impending state takeover has been looming for weeks.

Houston-area legislators will meet personally with the TEA commissioner in Austin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. He will let them know the state’s plans for the district before a public announcement impacting 187,000 students and their families.

Sigh. 

If there is a bright side, at least it is happening during HISD’s spring break, so folks don’t have to freak out on campuses throughout the district.

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Today is March 15 or the Ides of March. I have a special connection to this.

Commentary first heard of the Ides of March from William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” when the Soothsayer tells Caesar to “Beware the ides of March.”

That ends up being the day Caesar is assassinated.

Of course, Mark Antony gives one of the most memorable eulogies of all time here from Shakespeare:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
 I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
 The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
 So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
 Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
 If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
 And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
 (For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men),
 Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
 He was my friend, faithful and just to me,
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
 And Brutus is an honorable man.
 He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
 Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
 Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
 Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
 Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
 And Brutus is an honorable man.
 You all did see that on the Lupercal
 I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
 Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
 Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
 And sure he is an honorable man.
 I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
 You all did love him once, not without cause.
 What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for
 him?
 O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me;
 My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
 And I must pause till it come back to me.

Then the line from the same play uttered by Caesar that we use to call out someone close who betrayed us:

Et tu, Brutè?

My special connection?

In the history books it is Mark Antony. I am Marc Anthony. I think my name spelling is cooler for sure.

The featured photo is of Marlon Brando playing Mark Antony in 1953’s “Julius Caesar” flick based on Shakespeare’s play.

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Eva Longoria Bastón was in town last week and I didn’t know about it. See from the Chron hard copy today:

On Wednesday, a line of customers got to meet Eva Longoria Bastón at Spec’s in Midtown.

The “Desperate Housewives” star was making the rounds to promote her tequila, Casa Del Sol, a day after she did a segment on CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” She also visited Houston in August.

Casa Del Sol’s collection of blancos, añejos and reposados owes its smooth, sweet finishes to aging in French oak and cognac barrels. The brand is Mexican-owned and female-forward; even its logo features Mayahuel, the Aztecan goddess of agave. 

“I was really blown away by so many women in key positions in a patriarchal industry,” Longoria Bastón told the Chronicle of her involvement with the brand. “Our master distiller is a woman. Our VP of operations is a woman. The distillery is run by women. I was very interested because women are the No. 1 consumers of tequila, and so I thought women should economically participate in creating that.”

Also, did not know that women are the number one consumers of tequila. Now I do.

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I did catch part of the A&M – Corpus Christi Islanders win last evening in the NCAA March Madness. I will try to catch TSU’s game late this afternoon.

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Fifteen days until opening day, and I still don’t know who will be our starting centerfielder and will Michael Brantley and Yordan Alvarez be ready?