The Story I Was Born To Blog!

Later this week, I have the privilege of celebrating the 7th blog-iversary of this fair blog. Apparently, the news gods have decided to offer up a little something for me a few days in advance. It is that news item, which I suggest is the very story I was put on this earth to blog about ....

» Chron/AP: Euless appeals ruling allowing goat sacrifices

Goats ... Euless, TX ... this is enough to put me in some kind of news nirvana. If only the defendant were an elected official or his son were the starting lineback for Trinity High, this would pretty much be the unholy trifecta of blog fodder. As-is, this ain't bad, though ... we've got an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal from the defense attorney, and some better background in the Dallas Morning News:

The case, decided by a three-judge panel, involved the right of Jose Merced, an adherent of a Caribbean religion called Santeria, to slaughter four-legged animals such as goats and lambs, as well as other animals such as chickens and turtles, in his Euless home as part of religious ceremonies.

In 2008, a lower court found in favor of the city, but on July 31 the 5th Circuit sent the case back for further proceedings, urging Euless to develop a permit for Santeria practitioners.

So, on with the show ...

First off ... yes, Euless is precisely THIS weird. The DMN reports that Merced had been engaged in this behavior for 15 years at his Euless home. I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that this means he began doing so after the Wythe family left for Houston in the late 80s. Back in my day, we just had to figure out Tongans (which were fairly new to Euless when we moved in). They made things fairly easy on us ... great people, hard workers, and their kids made our football team better. I'm not aware of them engaging in animal sacrifice. The only odd thing we had happen to us was a hostage situation at a local convenience store that, at the time, I seem to recall being registered as the longest hostage situation on American soil (that is, if you fail to count an American embassy in Tehran as "American soil").

The allure of the Euless has long been that it is an affordable place to live for airport workers at DFW. For the longest time, it's been Euless and Irving for the manual laborers, Los Colinas and Grapevine for the stewardesses and pilots.

If you look at census data close enough, you'll spot some very odd anomalies, such as a group of apartment complexes in northern Irving where the rate of Asian females is quite pronounced and a few blocks in Euless where "other" is the leading demographic.Feel free to figure out why the first datapoint sticks to my memory banks ... and also why I feel so at-home in the Little Ellis Island that is southwest Houston. Cutting to the chase, it comes as no surprise to learn that there is a sizable enough Santeria-practicing community where goats would need to be sacrificed in order to ordain new priests to handle what I can only assume would be a growing base of parishioners.

Lastly, for Houston-area readers ... how shocked can we really be at the practices among Santeros? If we think back a few years, I'll point out that the most prominent Santero is the manager of the Chicago White Sox: Ozzie Guillén ... the guy who beat us in the World Series. I remember reading a few stories post-World Series mentioning Guillén's religion (as well as it's practice of animal sacrifice) in the obligatory post-Series cooing over the skipper.

So, for whichever of the above reasons you wish to believe, count me as unphased by it all.