Category Archives: State news

State news

Empty nest syndrome is overrated

thEPL1UGUL

A friend of mine just posted something on social media about her son moving away for the summer.

The young man is 21 and Mom is feeling “sad” about her nest becoming empty.

Hmmm. I thought about that for a moment, feeling an initial twinge of guilt.

It has to do with our own sons’ departure from our nest. One of them left in the late summer of 1991 after graduating from high school. He went off to college, which was about a two-hour drive from our home in Beaumont.

The empty nest syndromeĀ quite set in because we had another son still in high school.

He graduated the following spring and in late 1992, we packed him up and moved him all the way to Dallas, where he would attend college.

We dropped him off at the apartment he had rented. We said our goodbyes and he ran across the parking lot, into the darkened hallway … and he was gone.

My wife and I then drove back to Beaumont. It was the longest, quietest five-hour drive we’d ever taken together. We spoke maybe 10 or 12 words the whole time on the road.

Well, this has a happy ending.

We got over it. Our son called us as soon as he got his phone hooked up; cell phones didn’t yet exist. Our other son was doing well at the university he was attending.

It was some point quite soon after Son No. 2 got ensconced in Dallas that we realized: You know, this empty nest thing is pretty cool.

Therein might lie the brief pangs of guilt. Weren’t we supposed to be depressed over empty nest syndrome?

Naww! We were free to do what we wanted. Our sons behaved responsibly (most of the time) while they were away pursuing their studies.

They finished college. They earned their degrees. They both are successful in their chosen careers. One of them now has a family of his own — and we are the proud grandparents of the most gorgeous little girl who ever lived.

So, to my friend who’s now dreading having an empty nest for the first time in her adult life, I’ll just add this: You, too, are likely to learn that life does exist once the kid leaves the nest.

Take it from me … the empty nest syndrome is overrated.

 

Sports news, State news

Football isn’t exactly ‘king’ at Baylor University

briles

The hammer has dropped on two leading figures at Baylor University.

Kenneth Starr has been moved out of the president’s office and “demoted” to the role of Baylor chancellor. I guess within the Baylor system, the chancellor is more of a figurehead than an actual administrator.

Meanwhile, head football coach Art Briles has been “suspended.” Baylor regents, though, said they intend to fire the coach.

What’s more, Baylor Athletic Director Ian McCaw has been placed on probation.

This is a big deal. It centers on a sex scandal at the Waco school.

Two players were convicted of sexual assault. The trouble erupted, though, when allegations surfaced that the school didn’t take the charges seriously enough initially.

“We were horrified by the extent of these acts of sexual violence on our campus,” said Richard Willis, chair of the Baylor Board of Regents. “This investigation revealed the university’s mishandling of reports in what should have been a supportive, responsive and caring environment for students. The depth to which these acts occurred shocked and outraged us.”

And just why is this a big deal? Because, the football program had been rebuilt. Baylor was getting a lot of money because its football team was winning a lot of games. The school rebuilt its stadium. Coach Briles was seen a major celebrity at Baylor.

As for Starr, well, I’ve already commented on the rich irony of his dismissal. Recall that Starr served as special counsel to Congress, which charged him with looking into the Whitewater real estate deal involving President and Mrs. Clinton. The Whitewater probe then morphed into an investigation into a sexual relationship between President Clinton and a young White House intern.

That investigation culminated in the president’s impeachment on charges that he lied to a grand jury.

Sex consumed that investigation … just as it has consumed the university that Starr has led for the past couple of years.

Irony? You bet.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/26/us/baylor-kenneth-starr-art-briles/index.html

This isn’t the first time a big-name football has been taken down by a sex scandal. Penn State University fired the legendary Joe Paterno after one of his assistant coaches, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of sexual abuse of boys. Sandusky has been convicted of multiple felonies and is serving time in prison. The question became: What did JoePa know and when did he know it?

The same thing can be asked of Coach Briles and Kenneth Starr.

Someone has to be held responsible. Who better than two of the men at the top of the chain of command?

education news, political news, State news

SBOE runoff turns out OK after all

texas_board_of_education_messes_with_history-460x307

Just about the time I was ready to give up all hope of political sanity within the Texas Republican Party …

Those voters over yonder in the Piney Woods do something sensible. Who’d a thunk it?

Tuesday night, they rejected the candidacy of one Mary Lou Bruner to District 9 on the State Board of Education. Yep, the GOP runoff produced another winner, Keven Ellis of Lufkin, a member of the Lufkin school board.

Bruner had been favored to win. She finished first in the Republican primary in March and was considered a strong candidate in the runoff. Then came the torrent of criticism regarding many of the former kindergarten teacher’s social media posts.

The one that got the most attention has been her contention that President Obama subsidized his drug habit as a young college student by prostituting himself. My favorite, though, was the notion she posted about dinosaurs becoming extinct because the baby T-Rexes couldn’t survive after Noah’s Ark made landfall on Mount Ararat.

District 9 Republicans then began to give serious thought to the choices they had. Did they really want someone with that kind of outlook representing them on the board that determines public education policy in Texas?

I’m still not crazy about the notion of electing these board members. I still prefer that they be appointed, subjected to Texas Senate confirmation, and that they have a deep background in education.

AĀ Republican runoff in one East Texas SBOE district shouldn’t be seen necessarily as a harbinger of a return to sanity in the state’s political process. The state GOP, which dominates the Texas political landscape to the point that it hasĀ all but eradicated Democrats’ viability, still is capable of enacting some highly restrictive public policies.

Still, Keven Ellis’s runoff victory in East Texas gives me some hope that reason and sanity still have a voice within the state Republican Party.

political news, State news

SBOE spared a candidate’s lunacy

Bruner_v._Ellis_jpg_800x1000_q100

It’s late in the day and I’m a bit tired.

So I won’t belabor the point.

The Texas State Board of Education has been spared the idiotic philosophy of one Mary Lou Bruner, who today lost her Republican Party runoff in District 9, an East Texas board of education district.

GOP voters today nominated a Lufkin chiropractor, Keven Ellis, to campaign this fall against the Democratic nominee.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/24/state-board-education-runoffs/

The 15-member SBOE is a contentious enough body as it is. Bruner represented something out of a parallel universe.

She’s a former kindergarten teacher who said, among many other things, that President Barack Obama was worked as a gay prostitute to support a drug habit when he was a young man and that dinosaurs became extinct because the baby beasts couldn’t fend for themselves on Noah’s Ark.

Yes, this individual came dangerously close to helping determine public education curriculum for our state’s school children.

Wisdom prevailed today in East Texas.

I am grateful. Thank you, GOP voters.

 

legal news, national news, political news, Sports news, State news

Is karma about to bite Kenneth Starr?

ken starr

Does anyone out there see the irony in reports that Kenneth Starr has been fired as president of Baylor University?

Baylor’s board of regents will announce soon whether reports of Starr’s dismissal are true.

Why all the fuss over Starr? Baylor University has been struggling with a sex scandal on campus and reports that school officials failed to take action when one of the school’s football players was accused of raping a female student. The athlete was convicted and other cases emerged in which Baylor officials allegedly failed to take proper action.

The incident and the ensuing scandal has swallowed up the school.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/24/amid-reports-starrs-firing-baylor-says-expect-anno/

The irony is this …

Kenneth Starr is the very same fellow who more than 20 years ago launched an investigation into President Bill Clinton’s real estate dealings. Congress appointed him as a special prosecutor to probe the Whitewater investment matter.

Then something happened. Starr got wind of an inappropriate relationship that the president was having with a young female White House intern. That scandal grew as well. The investigation into a real estate matter morphed into something quite different, more salacious.

The president was summoned before a federal grand jury, which asked him about the relationship. The president, who swore to tell the truth, didn’t tell the truth and he was impeached for lying under oath.

Sex has this way of engulfing things, if you know what I mean.

I get that the cases are far from similar. Starr hasn’t been accused of doing anything improper here. He might take the fall, though, for others’ actions or inaction. He does run the university and as President Truman’s famous White House desk sign pointed out: The Buck Stops Here.

Still, as the saying goes: Karma can be a real drag, man.

 

legal news, national news, political news, State news

Ex-felons have rights, too

felon-voting-bars-button

Some of the talk along the presidential campaign trail has turned to felons.

Do those who have been convicted of felonies deserve the right to vote? Sure they do … under certain conditions.

It’s becoming a bit of a sore point among many who think that felons must not have their rights of citizenship restored. If they’ve done something egregiously wrong, why, let them pay for the rest of their lives. That’s the mantra.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently granted ex-felons the right to vote in that state, much to the consternation of conservatives who argue that, by golly, McAuliffe is a friend and political ally of Democratic nominee-to-be Hillary Rodham Clinton. So, naturally he’d want to grant ex-felons the right to vote.

Former GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz of Texas actually said that those who commit crimes are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. Let’s not paint with too broad a brush, Sen. Cruz.

Texas — of all places! — allows former felons to vote.

Check this out from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office:

http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/laws/effects.shtml

If a felon completes all the terms of his or her release from prison — and that includes fulfilling all the parole requirements — then he or she is eligible to register to vote. The restoration of these rights do not extend to those wanting to run for political office.

Honestly, I fail to see why this is a big deal.

A left-leaning website chides the National Rifle Association for opposing the rights of ex-felons to vote while at the same time pushing for the rights of ex-felons to own firearms.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/05/22/3780685/nra-wants-ex-felons-guns-not-voting-rights/

I won’t wade into that snake pit here. Maybe later.

However, the idea behind incarcerating people convicted of committing serious crimes is to force them to “repay their debt to society.” Once they complete a prison sentence and once they complete the terms of their parole — if they’re let out of The Joint early — then they have paid their debt in full. That’s how the judicial system sees it.

This clearly is a state-by-state issue. It need not enter the federal realm.

I’ve been critical in the past of many Texas laws and those who make them here. On this one, though, the Lone Star State got it right.

 

legal news, political news, State news

Pay attention, Gov. Abbott

abbott

There’s little I can add to this blog post by Brian Sweany of Texas Monthly.

Except, perhaps, this: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has a sharp legal mind and he ought to know more than he’s acknowledging regarding the conduct of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton.

Here’s Sweany’s blog post:

http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/abbotts-feigned-ignorance/

Sweany asks a pertinent question: Why doesn’t the governor know more than he knew more than a year ago about Paxton’s conduct?

The AG has been indicted by a Collin County grand jury on felony accusations of securities fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint as well. Paxton is accused of failure to disclose properly income he earned while giving investment advice.

As for Abbott’s “feigned ignorance,” as Sweany calls it, I’ll just add this.

Abbott was a trial judge in Houston before being elected to the Texas Supreme Court. He then was elected as the state’s attorney general, a post he held until January 2015 when he became the state’s governor.

Paxton succeeded Abbott at the AG’s office.

It would seem implausible that the governor knows nothing more now than he did a year ago. I don’t want Abbott to convict his Republican colleague, either, through statements to the media.

Still, to borrow a phrase: Gov. Abbott, what did you know and when did you know it?

 

local news, Sports news, State news

Now, that is going to be some ballpark

baseball

Amarillo is getting ready — soon, I hope — to unveil plans for construction of a baseball park downtown.

Its price tag has inflated a bit, from $32 million to around $50 million — give or take. The plan is to lure a Class Double-A baseball team that’s affiliated with the San Diego Padres of the National League. The team would relocate here from San Antonio, which is seeking to bring a Class Triple-A team from Colorado Springs.

Musical chairs, anyone?

Get a load, though, of what they’re planning for Arlington, Texas, where the Texas Rangers play hardball in the American League.

The city leaders want to replace a 22-year-old ballpark with a $900 million structure. Good deal, yes? I guess so. These ballparks cost a lot of dough these days.

I only wish the Arlington folks would drop the idea of putting a roof on the new stadium, presuming it will be approved by voters who will be asked for their blessing.

Read about it here:

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/arlington/article78764147.html

I happen to be a baseball traditionalist. I dislike playing an outdoor game under a roof. You play basketball in gymnasiums, not baseball. For that matter, you also play baseball on grass, not something called “artificial turf.”

Don’t get me started on the designated hitter, pine tar and all the body armor that batters wear when they’re facing a fastball-throwing pitcher.

When the Amarillo ballpark gets rolled out, my sincere hope is that the architects that the Local Government Corporation will hire will keep it simple.

I am not thrilled at the escalated cost of the ballpark — aka the multipurpose event venue — but it can be kept somewhat in check if we dispenseĀ a measure of theĀ glitz and glamor that’s likely to be built into that showcase down yonder in Arlington.

State news

Politicians muck up public education

1 Comment

texas-education-hat

I’ve lived in Texas for more than 32 years and have gotten quite accustomed the state’s penchant for electing people to so many public offices.

The Texas Constitution was set up as a document designed to decentralize power. I get it. Honest, I do.

But one elected body doesn’t need to be an elected body. I refer to the State Board of Education.

Fifteen individuals sit on that board, representing districts carved out of the state. They’re Texas residents who have varying degrees of expertise in public education, in curriculum, in all the issues affecting students and teachers.

But the upcoming Republican Party runoff election set to occur next week in East Texas reveals one of the hazards of this system of having politicians setting public education policy.

Mary Lou Bruner is running for a seat representing District 9. Her opponent is Keven Ellis, who by all rights should win. Bruner, though, is the favorite. She’s also an individual who has made some absolutely astounding public statements that make many of us question her fitness for the job.

She says the president of the Unites States once was a male prostitute; she says dinosaurs became extinct because the baby lizards couldn’t fend for themselves once Noah’s ark made land in Turkey. There’ve been other equally weird statements.

In reality, Bruner exemplifies just part of the problem with the SBOE. The other politicians on the board keep fighting among themselves over curriculum. Some folks want public schools to emphasize texts that rely on religious faith. Others disagree with that. The board once got into a serious battle over school fund investment policy.

What’s a credible alternative to electing these individuals?

Perhaps we could have the governor appoint them, selecting people from academia and/or from business. The state is full of qualified academic champions and business titans.

Have these folks stand for confirmation by the Texas Senate. Have them serve, say, six-year terms.

The state at one time used to appoint its state education board. The Legislature, though, returned the issue to the voters, asking them to decide on a constitutional amendment returning to an elected board. Texans voted “yes” and aren’t likely to give up that right.

But the state’s political structure seems to have flown off the rails, as we’re quite possibly going to see in East Texas if SBOE District 9 voters elect Mary Lou Bruner.

She shouldn’t be in a position to be taken seriously. However, the state’s extreme rightward lurch speaks — in my view — to the need to reform the Texas State Board of Education.

 

political news, State news

This politician shouldn’t be elected to SBOE

bruner

Texans decided to take a gamble when they decided some years ago to amend the stateĀ  constitution allowing politicians to run for seats on the State Board of Education.

I use the term “politician” in its strictest sense; the term describes anyone who seeks votes to an elected position.

Thus, the gamble occurs when politicians of varying stripes seek these offices.

I bring you one Mary Lou Bruner, a politician who’s running for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education.

She is among the strangest individuals imaginable seeking a highly critical state job, which is to help set public education policy for the state’s 5 million or so public school students.

Bruner’s statements are wacky … in the extreme.

Here’s the punch line: She is in position to win a Republican Party runoff next week and, with that victory, is a virtual cinch to be elected to the 15-member board.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/mary-lou-bruner/

District 9 comprises a section of East Texas. Yes, it’s a long way from the Texas Panhandle, which is represented on the SBOE board by Amarillo lawyer and former clergyman Marty Rowley.

Bruner’s runoff opponent is Lufkin chiropractor Keven Ellis. According to Texas Monthly, early voting trends seem to suggest Bruner’s in the driver’s seat.

Why is she so unsuitable? Check out the link I’ve attached to this blog and you get the idea.

She has said some stunningly ignorant things. And yet this individual is a retired kindergarten teacher.

Bruner has said President Obama spent part of his younger days as a male prostitute; she said Islam is not a religion; she said dinosaurs went extinct because they were babies and couldn’t fend for themselves after the ark landed on Mount Ararat; she said House Speaker Paul Ryan “looks like a terrorist” after he grew a beard.

The record is full of loony statements.

To think, therefore, that this individual stands an excellent chance at this moment of helping set public education policy in Texas.

I cannot vote against her in this upcoming runoff. However, I can put this short message out there and hope that it gets to enough individuals over in the Piney Woods to deny this individual the chance to affect the education of future Texas leaders.

Check out the link. It’ll make you cringe.