In a couple of weeks, the Texas Republican Party is set to hold its statewide convention in Houston, the city that has been worst hit by the state’s COVID-19 surge. In an editorial in the Austin-American Statesman today, the paper argues that’s a bad idea. Hospitalizations have quadrupled since Memorial Day in the Gulf Coast city, and the region’s intensive care unit beds are nearly full. As in Dallas, Houston officials “have implored residents to stay home.” And yet, on July 16, around 6,000 Texans are set to descend on the city for the Texas GOP convention.

The deadly consequences of such an event are not theoretical. A month ago, countywide Republican organizations began holding their own local conventions to prepare for the main event later this month. In Kaufman County on June 6, longtime GOP activist Bill Baker convened his local GOP convention. As Texas Monthly reports, the decision to hold the event would prove fateful:

As the total number of COVID-19 cases in Dallas County since March surpasses 20,000, the city’s Park Board is weighing how to reopen amenities at the 397 public parks. The Parks Department has already delayed opening pools and beginning summer camps until July 20. But other things, like playgrounds and spraygrounds, have been open since June 19.

All playgrounds and spraygrounds were sanitized prior to reopening but have not been cleaned since. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that chlorine in pools and water spraygrounds can kill the virus, but there remains concern about interactions outside the water. Dr. Kelvin Baggett, the city’s COVID-19 czar, warned against reopening these amenities during the Park Board’s June 4 meeting.

“We don’t know enough, and high-touch areas are the highest potential transmission sources,” Baggett said. “So, keep them closed is my recommendation.”

The Parks Department moved forward with opening. Other, closer-contact amenities like volleyball and basketball courts reopened June 5. It’s not uncommon to see groups of 20 to 30 clustered at basketball courts, maskless, at parks like Willis C. Winters Park in East Dallas. Park Board President Calvert Collins-Bratton says a key factor in distinguishing between what to reopen is the level of personal responsibility required. Park staff conduct summer camps and lifeguard at pools, whereas community members choosing to go to parks do so on their own without supervision.

“I don’t think we’ll ever all agree on the best approach to reopening,” Collins-Bratton said. “We want to be mindful and offer the public opportunities, but understanding that there is a level of personal responsibility in knowing where you’re going and how to protect yourself. And then still being able to offer those facilities and amenities that are open to the public and should be–(they’re) taxpayer-funded, after all.”

Mel Magazine is a little late to the Big Mouth Billy Bass 20th anniversary party. The Dallas-born animatronic singing fish that took Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” to new depths originally premiered on December 16, 1998, and Central Track rightfully celebrated the event in 2018. But what’s two years among friends? Mel published an oral history of the fish yesterday, apropos of pretty much nothing, but it is still an entertaining romp through the paneled dens and deer blinds of former Billy Bass owners, from George W. Bush to Tony Soprano.

As for the Southlake-based inventor, Joe Pellettieri, he told the article’s author that he doesn’t want people to get the wrong idea. Unlike his famous fish, he’s still relevant:

I guess I’m known for Big Mouth Billy Bass, but I always tell people that I’m not a one-hit wonder. I’ve had a lot of hits that you may or may not be familiar with over the years in toys, Halloween, Christmas and a lot of different categories. Do you remember the dancing hamsters, the ones that did “Kung Fu Fighting” and a bunch of different songs? That was me.

I work for a company called Occasions now, and they do a lot of holiday inflatables that I’ve worked on too. My start, though, was with the Dancing Flowers — those were my first hit with Gemmy, a novelty seasonal company where I was in product development. After the flowers, I did Big Mouth Billy Bass for them, so I started out with a bang, really — I guess I got lucky.

Each of Dallas’ protests against systemic racism and police brutality chant the following call-and-response:

“All lives can’t matter till what?”

“Black! Lives! Matter!”

You will also hear, in response: “Black! Trans! Matter!” and “Black! Queers! Matter!” These answers are a reminder to remember Black LGBTQIA+ people, who disproportionately bear the brunt of hate crimes and violence. Just yesterday, a 22-year-old Black transgender woman was shot dead in East Oak Cliff. Between 2018 and 2019, Muhlaysia Booker, Brittany White, and Chynal Lyndsay were all found dead in Dallas.

This reminder was manifest, in a somber yet sanguine, colorful, and glorious display, this past Sunday. A crowd of about a thousand gathered at Turtle Creek Park for the Support Pride/BLM rally and march. Like in many large cities across the United States, where official Pride marches were canceled due to COVID-19 concerns, Dallas’ Pride event was organized through grassroots efforts. Held in support of Black lives, the chorus was “all lives can’t matter until Black lives matter, but Black lives can’t matter until Black trans and queer lives matter.” For many, that refrain—and the grassroots approach to the march—represented a return to Pride’s roots.

“Stonewall was a riot, and it was started by [Marsha P. Johnson,] a Black trans girl,” Jorge Gallegos said as we marched down Cedar Springs Road through Oak Lawn, Dallas’ traditional gayborhood. “This is the best way for us to honor the movement. And if all Black lives matter, we need to include all of them: queer lives, queer Blacks, trans people.”

SMU is one of many universities, colleges, and schools trying to safely bring athletes back on campus this summer and the unprecedented effort is expensive, complex, and risky. The program got off to a telling start: In mid-June, five student athletes at SMU tested positive for COVID-19 according to a Dallas Morning News report. All students signed liability waivers before returning, releasing the school of any responsibility should they contract the virus. But the program is a day-to-day learning process with huge stakes. The NCAA has resisted issuing national protocols, leaving each school to devise its own plan.

Dr. Matthew Davis is an internist and one of the SMU team physicians who works with athletes across all sports, even traveling with teams and working the sidelines. He’s a member of the committee that developed the protocols for SMU’s athletes to return to workouts this summer.

Summer for student athletes typically is a time to take classes, work and train with teammates. The athletes train on their own, and the individual sports coaches are not on campus.  The NCAA ruled that athletes could return in June to their respective campuses for voluntary workouts.

Dallas County Sets COVID-19 Death Record. The county reported 20 new deaths from the virus, and Texas set yet another high for new cases — 6,975 Tuesday, which is about 1,000 cases more than the previous high. Dallas County hospitalizations are also at an all-time high. Testing is running into problems across Texas, as demand leads to long waits and results can take weeks to process. Gov. Abbott’s reopening plans have backfired tremendously, which is evident in both the surge in COVID-19 cases at day care facilities, which forced the state to reinstate emergency requirements it had previously repealed, and in the bar industry’s lawsuit against the governor, which alleges that his “erratic” approach to the shutdowns unfairly decimated their industry. Rural counties are now seeing a surge in cases, but suburban politicians resist requiring masks.

UT Southwestern Researching New COVID-19 Treatment. Here’s some more hopeful news: doctors at UTSW are attempting to determine if a pneumonia drug called Atovaquone, which is sometimes used to treat HIV patients, can be used as a possible COVID-19 treatment. They hope to begin using the treatment on patients in the Dallas area soon.

Three Dallas Protesters Sue City. Three Dallas protesters who were arrested during the first weekend of demonstrations against police brutality have filed a lawsuit against the city of Dallas claiming that Texas’ 40-year-old anti-rioting law is unconstitutional. They say the statute is too broadly written and can be used to target peaceful demonstrators.