Public Notice: A Week of Peace

This Christmas Eve, as Austinites gather 'round the electronic fireplace (Fireplace for Your Home, season 1, available on Netflix), we can be thankful, every one, that this is one Thursday evening when there is no City Council meeting. The disturbance of the peace that was last Thurs­day's meeting is covered amply elsewhere (see "Point Austin," "Leave No Fingerprints," and "Uber and Lyft Go to City Hall"), there is mercifully little public process going on over the next 10 days (see "Civics 101"), and next week is the Chronicle's annual Top 10s of the Year issue. So I'm outta here for 2015, leaving you with one last tidbit.

Congratulations to the inaugural winner of the Texas Freedom Network's Claytie Award for the most offensive, ridiculous, or otherwise outrageous quote of this past year: Ted Cruz, for his memorable comment during a radio interview in November about the Planned Parenthood shooting in Colorado Springs, "The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats. They go in and fight to give the right to vote to convicted felons. Why? Because the Democrats know that convicted felons tend to vote Democrat." Personally, I thought there were some worse choices, in line with TFN's mission of "protecting religious freedom, defending civil liberties, and strengthening public schools," but that's democracy for you.

Peace. See you in the new year.