Bill White is rising in the polls, and, according to some watchers, has a good chance to unseat Texas Gov. Rick Perry, seeking an unprecedented fourth term in office (he succeeded George W. Bush when Bush won the presidency).
Perry is scared, as illustrated by his chickening out of debates (he said that he wouldn’t debate White unless white released tax returns dating back nearly two decades, more than Perry has by a long stretch; plus, the period covered includes White’s service in the federal government, which required an annual report of financial information more detailed than tax returns).
White’s been combing Perry’s record to document where he and Perry differ — and in the doing, White’s team discovered that the official records from the governor’s office show he puts in fewer than ten hours of work a week.
If just half the Texans who put in more work hours than Rick Perry were to vote for White, White would win in a landlside.
At a minimum, it makes for an interesting political ad.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Kathryn swears by the watermelon and onion salad, crisp, sweet watermelon and sweet onions with greens and a great dressing.
For dessert I took the blueberry bock pie. The one slice must have contained (barely) a pint of fresh blueberries. The crust complemented the blueberries perfectly, crisp and exploding at the fork. The bock? It’s made with bock beer, Shiner Bock. I suspect chef Brian Olenjack reduces sugar considerably to add the beer, then probably simmers it down. As a result, it’s the sweetness of the blueberries one gets, and not a sugary, syrupy, sweet goo. With hints of nutmeg, it’s a wonderful concoction.
At $4, it’s one of the best pie buys in Texas right now.
Kathryn took a bowl of cinnamon ice cream, another steal at $2.
Blueberry bock pie and cinnamon ice cream, together?
(Also: I stuck with appetizers — the lamb lollipops will make lamb lovers, also love Olenjacks.)
We’ll be back. Rumor is the fruit pie changes ever few days. There’s a strawberry rhubarb in the mix.
More:
Olenjack’s sits almost across the street from JerryWorld, where the Cowboys play. Great game day gathering spot for before and after the game — close to the Rangers’ Ballpark in Arlington, too. Playoff headquarters?
Can you imagine the contretemps had he announced he won’t enforce federal immigration laws, nor support their enforcement by federal officials?
Abbott is once again putting politics far, far ahead of science, no matter how it damages Texas (Texas pays premiums in home insurance already because of damage from global warming).
If it’s something in the water that generates such craziness, I hope it enters the water systems well south of Dallas.
Abbott’s opponent is a well-respected, deeply experienced, honorable attorney named Barbara Ann Radnofsky. Almost every big polluting corporation in America is supporting Abbott. You may want to consider that as you contribute to candidates this week (hurry!), and as you vote this fall.
Worrying about education on Labor Day, with good reason — I get e-mail from the woman who would make a great lieutenant governor in Texas:
Queridos Amigos,
As you light up the grill and enjoy some well-deserved relaxation with family and friends, I hope you will take a moment to reflect on a question I like to ask myself every Labor Day.
We forget how indebted we are to a brave group of forgotten heroes, all of who were labeled troublemakers in their day. They bucked the status quo, stepping out of line to stand up for the dignity of every human being. Their bravery was often met with a baton, or the butt of a pistol, but they showed that the human spirit can not be silenced.
Their names seldom make the history books, but we owe these troublemakers for many of the blessings we take for granted today —including the 40-hour work week, a minimum wage, vacations, and child labor laws.
This past Saturday a group of over 30 volunteers joined my campaign team to go door-to-door in Brownsville, Texas. I want to send a special thanks to County Commissioners John Wood and Sophia Benavides, as well as Jared Hockema, the Vice Chair of the Cameron County Democratic Party for helping inspire the crowd.
Stirring up their own brand of trouble, they got South Texas parents to sign the “Linda Chavez Thompson Today, Tomorrow and November 2nd Pledge” — pledging to do more to help kids succeed in school, to stand up for candidates who support education, and pledging to show up a the polls on November 2nd.
Today millions of jobs are being created in science, technology, engineering and math. But instead of investing in education so our kids can compete for these jobs, Rick Perry and David Dewhurst and have led the Texas economy to the greatest share of minimum wage jobs.
We can do better. And in real conversations in Brownsville, Texas, parents and grandparents told us time and again they want more for their kids.
Teachers make great trouble, as everyone knows — which is why Socrates was condemned to death, why Booker T. Washington is so feared, and why the world’s greatest democrats always support education — like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, to mention a few education-supporting presidents.
Strike a blow against ignorance: Give a few bucks to Chavez-Thompson’s campaign, or sign up to help out if you live in Texas.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Four years ago, while few were watching, Democrats took every county post in Dallas County, Texas, previously a bastion of Republican votes. Not even normally-Democratic-leaning Harris County (Houston, nor Bexar County (San Antonio), went so blue.
In Corpus Christi in July, Democrats were wowed by a slate of powerful state-wide off candidates — Bill White, very successful, pro-business Mayor of Houston nominated for governor, a firebrand of a woman named Linda Chavez-Thompson to make Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst sweat and run from debates, and Hector Uribe for Texas Land Commissioner, and others. White is leading Gov. Rick Perry in fundraising.
Lots to get to today as [Joe] Driver takes a hit, we learn more about the state’s budget problems and thousands of prison workers could be out of work.
While the split between 77 Republicans and 73 Democrats in the Texas House is close enough that there has always been a legitimate battle for partisan control in 2010, most objective observers have long said Republicans are likely to keep a House majority heading into next year. For one thing, it’s a Republican year, and for another, GOP groups seem better-organized and better-funded than usual, and for another, we already know of one seat (Wichita Falls) that is likely to switch from Democrat to Republican because of an incumbent’s retirement.
Well, this thing just got more interesting.
Jay Root of the Associated Press reports in this morning’s papers that Rep. Joe Driver, an 18-year-legislator, has been getting reimbursements from the state for legislative-related travel and other expenses paid by his campaign, to the tune of $17,431.
From Root’s story: “A north Texas state representative who rails against the evils of runaway government spending admitted Monday that he has pocketed thousands of dollars in taxpayer money for travel expenses that his campaign had already funded. Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, faced with findings from an investigation by The Associated Press, acknowledged in an interview that for years he has been submitting the same receipts — for luxury hotels, airline tickets, meals, fees and incidentals — to both his campaign and to the Texas House of Representatives. He has also been collecting thousands of dollars in state mileage reimbursements for travel in vehicles for which his campaign has shelled out more than $100,000 since 2000. The AP’s review of hundreds of pages of state and campaign travel records found that Driver double-billed for at least $17,431.55 in travel expenses, much of it at fancy out-of-state hotels, since 2005. The number could go higher, but House travel records before mid-2005 have already been destroyed. Driver has been in office for 18 years. The double-billing figure does not include the vehicle expenses.”
What’s almost as amazing as the story itself is Driver’s reaction to the findings. His initial effort at damage control made Linda Harper-Brown look like Karen Hughes.
“Now you’re scaring the heck out of me,” Driver told the AP, adding: “It pretty well screws my week.”
Ya think?
Later in the story, Driver says, “If I knew it was wrong, I wouldn’t have done it that way. I wouldn’t have done it just to make money.”
Tell Your Congress Member to Support Education over Politics
The Texas Freedom Network and the Texas Faith Network this week joined nearly two dozen national organizations in support of a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives calling on the State Board of Education to stop playing politics with the education of Texas schoolchildren. We have signed on to a letter to U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, supporting House Resolution 1593. Congresswoman Johnson introduced the resolution in the U.S. House on July 30. The resolution, which has four other co-sponsors from Texas, calls out the state board for disregarding nearly a year’s worth of work by teachers and scholars who wrote initial drafts of new social studies curriculum standards. It also notes that more than 1,200 history scholars have warned that the heavily revised standards, which the board adopted in May, “would undermine the study of the social sciences in public schools by misrepresenting and even distorting the historical record and the functioning of United States society.”
The House resolution is available here. The letter from TFN and other organizations supporting that resolution is available here.
Teachers and scholars should write curriculum standards and textbook requirements, not politicians.
Texas schools should give our schoolchildren an education based on sound scholarship that prepares them to succeed in college and their future careers. Decisions about curriculum and textbooks shouldn’t be based on the personal and political agendas of state board members.
Because of the size of Texas, publishers often write their textbooks to meet curriculum standards in this state and then sell them to schools across the country. Texas should be a model for good curriculum and textbooks, not a national laughingstock.
You can do three other things to stop radical members of the State Board of Education from promoting their political and personal agendas in our kids’ classrooms:
Terri Potts Smith showed up bright and early for work — was it in the spring? — and we talked in our first floor Dirksen Senate Office Building office about the grind we faced ahead with the hearing schedule for the Senate Labor Committee and subcommittees. Suddenly she was transfixed by something out the window.
Having just recently learned that terrorists favored that particular corner for planting bombs under cars, I started a bit. Terri explained, astonished, that a red bird flew into the tree out the window.
It was a cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), a common bird, but not one common to Utah, where both of us had grown up.
I think of that often these days, and am still constantly startled, to see green birds flit across the streets of Duncanville, Texas.
Monk parakeets. Myiopsitta monachus. Also known as the Quaker parrot.
Monk parakeets profiled in the Chinese pistache, Duncanville, Texas, August 10, 2010 - photo by Ed Darrell; more than a dozen birds are hidden deeper in the tree.
Monk parakeets are invasive in Texas — it is thought the wild flocks developed from a few dozen escapees in the past three decades. They favor nesting on tall electrical poles — the stadium lights of the high school and college football stadia host a lot, as do electrical transmission lines. At Verizon Wireless we had at least one occasion when one of our cell tower climbers was attacked by one of the birds, apparently a mother just after the chicks had hatched. Cell towers provide excellent habitat for the birds.
At the best sitings I’ve had, previously I lacked a camera. Today I happened to have the small Pentax Optio V20. 20 to 30 of the birds roosted along an electrical wire. They were happy to see me until I pulled out the camera. (Pure conjecture: They’re smart. They’ve seen people with cameras before — and frequently, shortly after that some crew appears with a cherry-picker to destroy their nests. Camera-shyness is a survival function for the birds.)
All I observed was social activity and some preening, except for the one bird flitting around with a stick in its bill.
And the two who were trying to pull tape off of electrical transmission wires.
Monk parakeets working to get a charge out of life, picking at insulation on an electrical wire.
Troublemakers.
Truth be told, I’ll take the monk parakeets in greater profusion, if we can reduce the populations of starlings, grackles and cowbirds.
Is there any evidence of the parakeets preying on songbirds?
Monk parakeet in the Chinese pistache tree. All photos by Ed Darrell, use with attribution encouraged.
[Update: Oops. Looked like a locust tree on a quick look. A longer look, I wasn’t so sure. Kathryn confirmed that it’s really a Chinese pistache, Pistacia chinensis.]
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Linda Chavez-Thompson, the firebrand candidate for Texas Lieutenant Governor who has incumbent David Dewhurst so rattled he can’t debate her, was scheduled to introduce President Obama at an appearance in Austin today.
Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Gov. Linda Chavez-Thompson, on the view screen, addressing the Texas Democratic Convention in June - photo by Ed Darrell
Chavez-Thompson might be expected to shake his hand first, but she said no. Let her explain it:
Friends,
As you may already know, President Obama came to Texas today. And no, I didn’t shake his hand.
I walked up straight to him, stared him in the eye, and greeted him with a warm abrazo (hug). Because that’s the way you greet a fellow laborer.
And yes, I consider Barack Obama a laborer. As I told the crowd while introducing the President at the DNC event:
“He’s taken on the economy. He’s taken on health care. He’s taken on Wall Street. And he doesn’t back down.
What he does do, and Texans respect this, is extend his hand across the aisle in a spirit of bi-partisanship. After all, the challenges Americans and Texas families face don ‘t come with a Party label on them.
But when his offer is not reciprocated, he does what any Texan would do. He does the work himself, because at the end of the day the work still has to get done.
There’s nothing brave about ignoring problems. We had eight years of that. Bravery is going out in the hot sun and doing the hard work it takes to make things grow.
And that’s coming from the daughter of a cotton sharecropper, so I know what I’m talking about.”
For too long Rick Perry and David Dewhurst have been ignoring the problems in Texas. Today Texas has the highest share of minimum wage jobs in the country, and even the Texas Association Business has warned that we will not be able to compete for the higher paying jobs because too many students are walking out of high school without a diploma.
I’m traveling across Texas to hold Rick Perry and David Dewhurst accountable. And believe me, this isn’t about politics — it’s a responsibility we all owe to our children and grandchildren.
As I told the President when I welcomed him to Texas, I wasn’t just speaking for myself, but “for the millions of Texans who voices are too seldom heard.”
Those falls at the end? They’re artificial. Residents of Wichita Falls got tired of explaining what happened to the falls, and built artificial falls over a decade ago.
The unveiling of the falls was a big event — NBC’s Willard Scott covered the story, which shows you how big the event was, and how long ago it was.
I’ve eaten barbecue at the Bar-L Drive In, under the wise tutelage of Joe Tom Hutchison. It was lunch, though, so we did not sample the Red Draw.
It’s maybe an apocryphal story. Republicans in Texas hope so.
It was at a very large, mostly African-American church in Dallas. The social action committee, or whatever it’s name is, was meeting. The only white guy in the room was there to try to get them interested in the elections for the members of the Texas State Board of Education. Normally these races are sleepers, down ballot, and off the radars of almost all interest groups. The social action committee was just as tough an audience as any other group with limited resources and limited time to try to get good political action.
Besides, a good chunk of Dallas is represented by Mavis Knight, an African American who is a pillar of common sense on the Texas education board, and Ms. Knight’s seat isn’t being contested in 2010. Why should Dallas voters be interested in any of these races?
“Before we start talking,” the lone white guy said, “I’d like to show you some of what has been going on in the Texas State Board of Education over the last year, in their work to change social studies standards.”
And he showed the video below. The entire committee grew quiet, silent; and then they started to shout at the television image. “What’s that?” “Is he crazy?” “He said white men gave us civil rights?” “HE SAID WHAT?”
A 58-second video clip that could greatly animate electoral politics in Texas. The comments came fast and loud.
“That was part of the debate? What, are they crazy down there? Don’t they know history? Don’t they know the truth? They aren’t going to tell our children that Martin Luther King didn’t work to get civil rights, are they? They aren’t going to say Martin Luther King died, but some white man gave rights to African Americans — are they?”
It’s a video clip that every Republican candidate in Texas hopes will be hidden away. The Democratic tide that has swept Dallas County in two consecutive elections threatens to stop the Republican stranglehold on statewide offices in November, if those who voted in such great numbers in 2008 turn out again.
There are other stakes, too — the Republican stranglehold allowed the state education board to gut science standards, to eliminate Hispanic literature from language arts standards, and to try to change history, to blot out Thurgood Marshall and as much of the civil rights movement as they could hide. So Texas children get a second-rate, incorrect set of standards in social studies, in English, and in science.
Republicans have declared war on good education, war on the children who benefit most from good education.
So, according to Don McLeroy, who lost the primary election to keep his seat, this little piece of history, below, is inaccurate. Tough for McLeroy — the Schoolhouse Rock video sits in too many Texas school libraries. Sometimes, the facts sneak through, defying the best efforts of the Texas State Soviet of Education to snuff out the truth.
But don’t you wonder what every woman, African American, and Hispanic in Texas will think about the importance of the 2010 elections, when they see what Gov. Rick Perry’s appointee to chair the SBOE, thinks about how civil rights were achieved in the U.S.?
Over at Republican headquarters, they hope that story is apocryphal.
Texas Democrats convention in Corpus Christi, June 26, 2010 - photo by Ed Darrell - Click picture for a larger view
Even with all the other wonderful distractions at political conventions — speeches, caucuses, t-shirts, posters and bumpersticker sales, great parties, and old friends — people watching is a key activity. Democratic conventions are a lot more fun than Republican conventions, in my opinion, solely for the diversity of people who show up as delegates.
This is a panoramic shot from my seat in the 23rd Senatorial District Delegation, during a break to count delegate votes on some issue in the morning. In the afternoon, Jack’s Lounge (the bright blue room opening in the upper left) filled up with delegates cheering the U.S. against Ghana in the World Cup, and TCU against UCLA in the College World Series. Click the picture for a larger view.
Are you in this picture somewhere?
Texas Democratic Convention, Saturday, July 26, 2010, a shot from the floor - photo by Ed Darrell
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Moon over Corpus Christi Bay, June 25, 2010 - photo by Ed Darrell; use permitted with attribution
This is the scene that greeted delegates to the Texas Democratic Convention as they left the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, at about 8:00 p.m. last Friday, June 25. (Natural light photo, handheld, 1/60th exposure at ISO 400)
The Moon was near full, and the tide was good for sailing.
Delegates had just heard Bill White accept the party’s nomination for governor.
In my brief period as a Sea Scout, I most enjoyed evening and night sailing. Water is astoundingly quiet at dusk and later, when sailing. In Corpus Christi I got a half-dozen shots and lamented I didn’t have a tripod, to get a better shot of the Moon.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Just as a reminder about what we’re doing in education, I hope every teacher and administrator will take three minutes and view this video (that allows you some time to boggle).
Surely you know who Tom Peters is. (If not, please confess in comments, and I’ll endeavor to guide you to the information you need.)
Zeno at Halfway There describes a terrible situation in California community colleges — not unlike the situation Texas high schools face. Don’t tell Texas Republicans, they’ll want to adopt it for community colleges, too.
State senator Carol Liu is the author of SB 1143, a measure which would somehow incorporate course completion rates in the formula for computing state funding for community colleges. Think about that for a moment. (Try giving it more thought than our legislators do.) Colleges that pass more students through their curriculum will get more funding. Colleges that pass fewer will get less. At first blush, that might seem reasonable.
Liu forgot, however, to include any quality standards in her bill. Schools that are willing to become diploma mills will prosper under her dollars for scholars program. The pressure to lower standards will be intense.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
This post is tenth in a series on the education planks of the 2010 Texas Democratic Party Platform.
This is an unofficial version published in advance of the final version from the Texas Democrats, but I expect very few changes.
DIVERSITY
Texas Democrats support innovative approaches to ensure diversity in every Texas institution of higher education. We condemn intolerance on Texas campuses and encourage universities to develop and offer culturally diverse curricula, student activities, and student recruitment policies that promote understanding, respect and acceptance.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
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