Steve Schafersman, Texas State Board of Education District 15

November 6, 2012

District 15 for the Texas State Board of Education covers 77 counties in Texas’s northern Panhandle.  It’s oil (Midland), cotton, Texas prairie and small towns, and lots of schools, and some surprisingly good colleges and universities.

Texas State Board of Education District 15, TFN image

Texas State Board of Education District 15, TFN image – “District Overview
District 15 is huge, covering all of northwestern Texas. It is also arguably the most Republican SBOE district, giving more than 74 percent of the vote to Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential election and more than 70 percent to Gov. Rick Perry in the 2010 gubernatorial race.”

It’s a district where science plays a big role, and should play a bigger one.  The 15th includes those lands in Texas where the Dust Bowl got started, where unwise plowing based on inaccurate readings of climate contributed to one of the greatest man-made natural resources disasters in all of history.  It’s the home of Texas Tech University, where members of the chemistry faculty created a wine industry based on the chemistry of grape selection and fermentation, and where geologists learn how to find oil.

This area leads Texas in wind power generation, a considerable factor in the state that leads the nation in wind power generation.

In short, science, engineering and other technical disciplines keep this area economically alive, and vital at times.

Of the two candidates, Democrat Steve Schafersman is a scientist, and a long-time, staunch defender of science education (what we now cutely call “STEM” subjects:  Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  If the race were decided by a test in STEM subjects, Schafersman would be the winner.  Schafersman lives in Midland.

The GOP candidate in the race is religiously anti-science, Marty Rowley of Amarillo.  As a good-ol’-boy, former pastor, he’s got a lot of support from the usual suspects.  Rowley’s views on science, technology, engineering and mathematics run contrary to the business and farming interests of his entire district.  Do his supporters look to the future?

Do you vote in Midland, Lubbock, Amarillo, Dalhart, Abilene, San Angelo, Dallam County, Tom Greene County, Cooke County or Montague County?  You need to vote for Steve Shafersman.  Do your children a favor, do your schools a favor, and do your region of Texas a favor, and vote for the guy who works to make education good.

Shafersman is the better-qualified candidate, and probably among the top two or three people with experience making the SBOE work well, in the nation.  He deserves the seat, and Texas needs him.

More:

Steve Schafersman campaign flier:

Shafersman for Texas State Board of Education District 15

Schafersman for Texas State Board of Education District 15 – click image for larger version

Leave a Comment » | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Creationism, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Evolution, History, Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday

July 14, 2012

Woody Guthrie singing, Smithsonian Folkways image

Woody Guthrie singing, Smithsonian Folkways image – The sticker on Woody’s guitar reads, “This Machine Kills Fascists.”  Woody regarded music as a great tool of democracy and freedom.

July 14, 2012, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Woody Guthrie, folksinger, union organizer, chronicler of American values, troubles and change.

We’re already more than halfway through Woody’s centennial year — and what celebration took place at Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub?  History slips by so fast.

Much celebration remains.  Get out your calendar and figure out which events you can join in.

Poster for the 2012 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma

Poster for the 2012 Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma

Wonderfully, a website celebrates Woody’s 100th:

Perhaps fittingly, Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub hits the road again, today — off through Oklahoma.

In the interim, get out there, get the history, and join in the chorus!

More, Other Sources:

Page from booklet of Woody Guthrie sheet music...

Page from booklet of Woody Guthrie sheet music and lyrics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1 Comment | Dust Bowl, Folk Music, Great Depression, History, Labor and unions, Music, Politics, unions | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A song for our times: Arlo and Pete sing Woody

July 20, 2010

In the late 1960s and the 1970s, conservatives made big displays of singing this song.  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir recorded one very popular version of it; it showed up often.  In those occasional complaints about the difficulty of singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” this song’s suitability for national anthem status was always raised.

Today?  I haven’t heard it at a Republican gathering in long, long time.  I’m not saying that it’s completely disappeared from the conservative song book — among other things, I don’t attend Republican conventions as often as I once did, but I don’t think I’d hear it if I did.  I am saying that people finally started listening to the song, and it’s been largely dropped from conservative sing alongs for political reasons.

And that tells us a lot.

It would be good to hear this song a lot more; it would be good if more people sang it.

Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger leading the congregation in singing Woody Guthrie’s “The Land Is Your Land,” from a 1993 concert at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Virginia (one of my favorite venues for any music):

(Arlo’s got a new release this year, featuring this tune.)

More:

5 Comments | Cultural Literacy, Dissent, Dust Bowl, Great Depression, History, Music, Patriotism, Political conventions, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Public Lands insanity

November 16, 2008

Remember when Strange Maps “discovered” that so much of the 13 western states is owned by the Federal Government?  On the one hand, it was nice to see people paying attention to public lands in the west.

Public lands in a western state, with grazing cattle. Wild Earth Guardians image.

Public lands in a western state, with grazing cattle. Wild Earth Guardians image.

Public lands. Photo from the Montana Wildlife Federation

Public lands. Photo from the Montana Wildlife Federation

At the Bathtub, we remarked on the history of the issue with a map that showed where the publicly-owned lands really are (the Strange Maps version only showed a dot in the middle of each state proportionate to the federal land held in the state.)  On the other hand, it was an open invitation for know-nothings and know-littles to jump in with silly ideas.  Remarkably, the post remained free of such folderol — until just recently.

None of these sites gives any serious thought to the idea.  None provides a scintilla of an iota of analysis to indicate it would be a good idea.

As one of the the principal spokesmen for the Sagebrush Rebellion in the early days, I want it known that I’ve thought these issues through, and argued them through, and followed the documentation for 30 years (Holy frijole!  I’m old!).  Issues with public lands revolve around stewardship.  Bad stewardship is not improved by a change in ownership.  Ownership change has all too often only led to worse stewardship.  Selling off the public lands is a generally stupid idea.

Certain local circumstances change the nature of a tiny handful of such deals — but not often, not in many places, and not enough to make a significant contribution to retiring any debt the federal government owns.

On the other hand, incomes from these lands typically runs a few multiples of the costs of managing them.  The Reagan administration discovered the lands were a great source of money to offset losses in other places, and for that reason (I suspect) never really got on the Sagebrush Rebellion band wagon — or, maybe Reagan’s higher officials just didn’t get it.

It’s troubling that such a flurry of stupidity strikes now, during a transition of presidents. This is how stupid ideas get traction, like kudzu on a cotton farm, while no one is paying deep attention.  Let’s put this idea back into its coffin with a sagebrush stake in its heart.

Bottom line:  Keep public lands in federal trust.  The Sagebrush Rebellion is over.  The sagebrush won.

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Speaking of presidential transitions, who should be Secretary of Interior?  Stay tuned.

More:

Update 2014: The original GSA map showing percentages of federal holdings in each state (including Indian Reservations as federal holdings), as published in Strange Maps when it was still active.

Update 2014: The original GSA map showing percentages of federal holdings in each state (including Indian Reservations as federal holdings), as published in Strange Maps when it was still active.

8 Comments | Capitalism, Communism, Dust Bowl, Economics, Environmental protection, History, Natural resources, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Socialism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Quote of the moment: W. C. Lowdermilk, soil erosion

March 20, 2007

Soil erosion in Virginia, photo by W. C. Lowdermilk

Soil erosion in Virginia, photo by W. C. Lowdermilk “Figure 15. — A formerly productive field in Virginia that has been cut to pieces by gully erosion. About 50 million acres of good farm land in the United States have been ruined for further practical cultivation by similar types of erosion.”

 

From Conquest of the Land through 7,000 Years, by W. C. Lowdermilk, its first director, a soil conservation publication of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, first issued in about 1939:

When in Palestine in 1939, I pondered the problems of the use of the land through the ages. I wondered if Moses, when he was inspired to deliver the Ten Commandments to the Israelites in the Desert to establish man’s relationship to his Creator and his fellow men — if Moses had foreseen what was to become of the Promised Land after 3,000 years and what was to become of hundreds of millions of acres of once good lands such as I have seen in China, Korea, North Africa, the Near East, and in our own fair land of America — if Moses had foreseen what suicidal agriculture would do to the land of the holy earth — might not have been inspired to deliver another Commandment to establish man’s relation to the earth and to complete man’s trinity of responsibilities to his Creator, to his fellow men, and to the holy earth.

When invited to broadcast a talk on soil conservation in Jerusalem in June 1939, I gave for the first time what has been called an “Eleventh Commandment,” as follows: Thou shalt inherit the Holy Earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation. Thou shalt safeguard thy fields from soil erosion, thy living waters from drying up, thy forests from desolation, and protect thy hills from overgrazing by thy herds, that thy descendants may have abundance forever. If any shall fail in this stewardship of the land, thy fruitful fields shall become sterile stony ground and wasting gullies, and thy descendants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from off the face of the earth.

Leave a Comment » | Conservation, Dust Bowl, Environmental protection, Ethics, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Natural history, New Deal | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell