In Remembrance Of Common Sense

An Obituary that arrived by email from a mournful reader:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

• Knowing when to come in out of the rain
• Why the early bird gets the worm
• Life isn't always fair
• Maybe it was my fault.

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense really started downhill when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

He declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses, and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents Truth and Trust, by his wife Discretion, his daughter, Responsibility, and his son Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

Editors Note: Submitters name withheld by request, for fear of reprisal by Common Sense's worst enemy, the Politically Correct Police.

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Carrying Guns In Texas Parks

Jerry Patterson defends his pro-gun stance on carrying guns in Texas parks.

Jerry Patterson, Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office

Recent exhibitions of my Second Amendment rights have earned some harsh words from editorial writers at some of Texas’ big city newspapers, including the San Antonio Express-News.

Specifically, I’ve been criticized for acknowledging I carried a concealed handgun, as is my right, on recent visits to Big Bend National Park. A National Park Service rule prohibits carrying a loaded, concealed handgun.

“Evidently, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson was absent from school the day the Constitution was covered,” wrote the San Antonio Express-News.

While that’s an awfully cute jab, the reality is I’ve learned the Constitution over the course of a lifetime – not just one day. As a matter of fact, I’ve taken oaths to uphold and protect our Constitution – as a U.S. Marine and as a state elected official.

So let’s get past the sophmorisms and look at the facts.

The ban on loaded firearms in National Park is not a law. It is a rule. A rule enacted by unelected bureaucrats deep in the recesses of the National Park Service. There was no legislative process involved -- these bureaucrats arbitrarily terminated this Constitutional right.

Fortunately, the clearly unconstitutional National Park Service rules on possessing firearms in federal parks are changing. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne recently proposed new rules that would respect state firearm laws and the Second Amendment.

Nonetheless, some editorial boards are opposed to allowing citizens the right to self-defense. Lawabiding Texans, they say, can’t be trusted with guns and don’t need them in the park anyway because no one else can have a gun.

On a recent hike in Big Bend National Park, I found two expended 9mm shell casings, along with a discarded pack of Mexican cigarettes. The Texas Department of Public Safety ballistics lab confirmed two different weapons fired these casings. How could this be? There are no guns in Big Bend, because that’s the rule, right?

Tell that to the rafters who were ambushed and killed several years ago in an area adjacent to the Big Bend known as Colorado Canyon. Tell that to the woman whose body, suffering from blunt force trauma to the head, was found floating in five feet of water at Amistad National Recreation Area.

In 2006, the most recent year available for statistics, the National Park Service says there were 116,588 reported offenses in national parks. That includes 11 killings, 35 rapes or attempted rapes, 61 robberies, 16 kidnappings and 261 aggravated assaults.

With the increasingly violent criminal activity along the Texas-Mexico border, carrying a firearm in remote areas along the border, including Big Bend National Park, is a choice every citizen should have.

Editorial writers at the Express-News assert the current proposal to rescind the ban on lawfully carried firearms in National Parks is a “solution in search of a problem.” But the problem is very real.

We as Americans are guaranteed our right to keep and bear arms. Whether it is for hunting, personal protection or a defense against a tyrannical government, that right is unassailable and inviolate. To rescind that right when one crosses an arbitrary boundary into an 800,000-acre national park is an unconstitutional act no different than rescinding our Fourth Amendment protection against unlawful search and seizure.
As an elected official, I take an oath of office “to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State, so help me God.”

I do not regard such affirmations as mere anachronistic formalities. I guess you can just call an old-fashioned believer in the wisdom of those who penned the Bill of Rights and not much a believer in the wisdom of editorial boards.

JERRY PATTERSON was elected Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office in 2002 and again in 2006. A former Marine and Vietnam Veteran, Patterson is the author of Senate Bill 6, the Concealed Handgun Law.

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New Law Creates Opportunities for Student Free Speech

The following article is reprinted with permission from the Education Reporter, a publication of the Texas Association of School Boards.

The topic of religion in public schools received a great deal of attention during the recent Texas legislative session. Whenever that emotional topic is part of a public debate, we are likely to hear some people claim that courts have “kicked religion out of school.”

In fact, the expression of religious viewpoints is still very much permitted in
public schools.

Constitutional Principles

The United States Constitution protects the right of individual students to express personal religious viewpoints. School districts, however, cannot endorse religious views or establish a preference for or against religion. In the words of the United States Supreme Court, “There is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect.”

Both the constitutionally protected freedom of individuals to express their own private religious views and the prohibition on government endorsed messages for or against religion work together to offer Americans the greatest possible religious liberty. Nowhere is that powerful balance more dynamic than in our public schools, where the interests of students, parents, religious and community leaders, and school officials intersect.

The freedom of individual students to express their own religious views in private conversations and to pray alone or in groups is well established. Questions remain, however, about students’ rights to express their individual views or pray when they are speaking publicly at school-sponsored events.

New Texas Law

Hoping to clarify this point, the Texas Legislature has passed a new law about student religious expression. House Bill 3678, also called the Religious Viewpoints Anti-discrimination Act (RVAA), addresses four general areas:
freedom of religious expression, student speakers, religious expression in class assignments, and freedom of association. The RVAA takes effect with the 2007–2008 school year.

No viewpoint discrimination:

The law requires districts to treat a student’s voluntary expression of a religious
viewpoint on an otherwise permissible subject in the same manner the district treats a student’s voluntary expression of a secular or other viewpoint on the same topic. This section prohibits discrimination against a student based on the student’s religious viewpoint.

Student speakers:

The law also requires districts to adopt a policy that establishes a limited public
forum for student speakers at all school events at which a student is to publicly speak. The policy must also:

• require the district to provide the forum in a manner that does not discriminate based on religious viewpoint;
• provide a method, based on neutral criteria, for the selection of student speakers at school events and graduation;
• ensure that a student speaker does not engage in obscene, vulgar, offensively lewd, or indecent speech; and
• state that the student’s speech does not reflect the endorsement, sponsorship, position, or expression of the district. The disclaimer must be provided at all graduation ceremonies and at any other event at which a student speaks for as long as necessary to dispel confusion over the district’s “nonsponsorship” of student speech.

Expression in class assignments:

The law states that students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments. Homework and other assignments must be judged by
ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns identified by the district. Districts may not penalize or reward students based on the religious content of their work.

Freedom of association:

The law states that students may organize prayer groups, religious clubs, “see you at the pole” gatherings, and other religious gatherings before, during, and after school to the same extent that students are permitted to organize other non-curricular student activities and groups. Districts must give religious groups the same access to facilities as given to other non-curricular groups, without discrimination based on the religious content of the group.

Similarly, groups that meet for prayer or religious speech must be permitted to advertise or announce their meetings to the same extent as nonreligious groups. A district may disclaim sponsorship of non-curricular groups in a manner that neither favors nor disfavors groups that meet to engage in prayer or religious speech.

Required Local Policy

The law specifically requires districts to adopt a local policy establishing a limited public forum and protecting voluntary student expression of religious viewpoints. The law includes a model policy, and a district that adopts and follows this policy is deemed to be in compliance with the
other provisions of the RVAA.

The model policy provides for student speakers at football games; any other athletic events designed by the district; opening announcements and greeting for the school day; and any additional event designated by the district, such as assemblies and pep rallies.

For each of these events, the district must select a student speaker from the highest two grade levels at the school who holds one of the following positions of honor: student council officers, class officers of the highest grade level of the school, captains of the football team, and other positions of honor designated by the district. Students from these groups may volunteer for selection and are then selected randomly by drawing names. Each student selected speaks for a week, or on another schedule designated by the district.

The model policy states that the subject of the student introductions must be related to the purpose of the event, honoring the occasion, the participants, and those in attendance, bringing the audience to order, and focusing the audience on the purpose of the event. The student must stay on the subject and may not engage in obscene, vulgar, offensively lewd, or indecent speech.

The model policy prohibits discrimination based on a secular or religious viewpoint and provides for a disclaimer of school sponsorship of the speech. The model policy contains similar provisions for speeches by sports team captains, homecoming kings and queens, and the like, and provisions relating to graduation speeches.

From the Law Books to the Campus Loudspeaker

For many, the implementation of this new law will create more, often welcome opportunities for students to express their personal views on a variety of topics, including religion. But school officials also will face challenges in implementing this new law. During the legislative session,
TASB did not oppose this bill but did express concerns about the challenges it would create in the public school environment.

What Are the Possible Challenges?

Discipline: The constitutional foundation of this new state law is that students, not the school district, will decide what to say within a limited public forum. Students may say whatever they wish, including expressing religious views and praying. If, however, the student speaker expresses a minority religious viewpoint, that speech may provoke controversy. Moreover, students are not limited to expressing religious views; they may express any viewpoint on the designated topic without fearing disciplinary consequences. The law says the district must prohibit speech that is obscene or offensively lewd, which are concepts defined in Supreme Court cases. Short of this high standard, however, student speech must be tolerated.

Discrimination: In light of this open opportunity for free speech, even offensive speech, opponents of the new law express concern that hate speech and other discriminatory speech will now have a forum in public schools.

Dollars: Finally, no matter how school officials feel about the opportunities and challenges created by this new law, trustees will not be able to ignore the bottom line. Introducing
controversial speech into the public school setting raises the possibility of legal challenges from all sides: minority-view families who feel student speeches are too one-sided; majority-view families offended by hearing a minority view; citizens who object to the law itself; and citizens
who claim the district has not gone far enough in implementing the law.

The legal and financial risks generated in this emotional environment will naturally be of concern to all school officials as they seek to fulfill their fiduciary responsibility to their school districts

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Union Card Checks Defeat The Protection Of A Secret Ballot

As flawed as our election system is, one of the things it does right is to allow voters to cast their ballot in private.

When it comes to organizing unions, Big Labor doesn't think workers deserve that protection.

You can bet that President Obama will be called on to pay back some election favors he owes to Big Union interest very early in his first year in office.

And he has already signaled, by announcing that Hilda Solis would be his nominee for Secretary of Labor, that he intends to square his debt.

Solis has been a vocal supporter of the Card Check bill, cosmetically called the "Employee Free Choice Act", a piece of proposed legislation that union bosses are drooling to push through Congress, and onto Obama's desk. The legislation would end the practice of workers voting to unionize by secret ballot, instead forcing companies to recognize unions once a majority workers signed membership cards.

While that doesn't sound like a big change, the potential for organizers to publicly pressure or harass workers to sign cards and join unions is huge.

Being pressured in the break room at work is bad enough, but imagine sitting in a cafe after work, and having organizers harangue you for not wanting to sign up. Or maybe they caught you at the gas station, or in the grocery store. Maybe they even talk to your spouse, and attempt to get at you that way.

And the time period to apply that sort of public pressure would not be limited by a voting deadline. Organizers would simply continue to work on the hold-outs until they had a majority.

Even worse, if someone in a position of authority, say a foreman, is in favor of the union, and one his subordinates isn't, the possibility of that foreman applying far more serious pressure than embarrassment is very real. Would you swap a vote to keep your job? For many, that might be the choice the have to make.

Free choice? Hardly.

Pro business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are preparing to spend millions in opposition to the legislation. They will face an uphill battle, with Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, and a President favorable to the bill in command of a bully pulpit.

You can expect to see our new president give a lot speeches about the bill, and portray it as being good for the American worker, the middle class, baseball, hot dogs and apple pie.

He won't say it's good for Chevrolet, though. Big Business will be cast as the evil empire in the fight, and their opposition to the bill will be likened to Darth Vader warming up the death ray as he circles the rebel moon.

Opponents of the bill will largely be forced to wage a nationwide grass roots campaign designed to bring voter pressure on Democrat representatives. That means the bulk of their money and time will be spent in democratic districts, attempting to sway pro union voters with an appeal to their basic fairness.

Seasoned political operatives working for the unions realize that, and that will be the reason to push the legislation through early and quickly. The quicker they can move the bill through Congress, the less media attention it will receive. And the earlier they can get it done, the longer voters will have to forget about it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will know that as well. The pair have shown their willingness many times to shut down debate and twist a few arms, and this will be no different.

Couple that effort with a biased national press corp openly infatuated with all things Obama, and it spells disaster for the time honored fairness of the secret union ballot.

The battle will be an early test of how well Republican Senators can play the minority party game. If they can muster a cohesive, enduring filibuster, then business groups will have a shot at spotlighting the vote, and swaying enough public sentiment to stop the charge.

The last thing Obama and company want to do is give the GOP a wedge issue for the midterm 2010 elections. They well remember the Health Care debacle, and what it did to President Clinton's first term.

Business leaders have no choice but to start the local media campaigns early, and hope there are still a few reporters at the national level who are willing to explore both sides of the issue.

And if that exploration is honest, the crux of the matter is plain to see. The issue is fairness.

This legislation is about nothing more complicated than giving Big Labor an open door to bully and strong-arm workers into swelling their membership ranks, and therefore their coffers. It will do that by ripping away the simplest protection that American voters enjoy, the secret ballot.

It is an understatement to call Card Check pro union. The reality is, it's anti-worker.

It's wrong, and for the sake of workers everywhere, it needs to be stopped.

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Ron Paul On Detroit

Maybe the most succinct argument against congressional bail-outs came from Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Speaking from the U.S. House Floor about the automobile maker bail-out on Dec. 10th of this year.

I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying legislation. It doesn't take a whole lot to convince me that we are on the wrong track with this type of legislation. And at great risk of being marginalized, I want to bring up a couple of issues. One is that if one were to look for guidance in the Constitution, there's no evidence that we have the authority to take funds from one group of Americans and transfer it to another group who happen to need something.

And the moral argument is it's not right to do so. Why should successful Americans be obligated to take care of those who have made mistakes?

But those two arguments in this Chamber are rather weak arguments, so I will try to talk a little bit about economics. I think what we're doing here today and what we've done here for the last week has been, essentially, a distraction. We're talking about transferring funds around, $15 billion that's been authorized. It's been designated to do some other interventions that were unnecessary in the car industry. And in a way, this legislation probably could have been done by unanimous consent, but there's been a lot of talk and a lot of publicity and a lot of arguments going back and forth about the bailout for the car companies; and it is, of course, very important.

But in the scheme of things, you know, what's $15 billion mean anymore, especially since it's been authorized?

The big thing is the big bailout, the $8 trillion, the unlimited amount the Federal Reserve has invested and what we've been doing for the past 6 months. We are on the road to nationalization. In many ways, we're in the midst of nationalization without a whimper.

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Teaching Kids To Talk The Talk, The Old School Way

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) won a victory last week at the expense of taxpayer dollars and common sense.

A judge has told the state of Texas that the English as a Second Language (ESL) program is not working for Hispanic secondary students, and ordered the state to fix the problem before the start of school next year.

In a rare bit of legal irony, the judge who issued the ruling last Thursday is the same judge who started the whole mess to begin with.

35 years ago, Judge William Justice ruled that the Texas educational system had a legal obligation to provide bilingual education to secondary level students who didn't speak English proficiently.

That ruling, which flew in the face of what had worked before, set our state on the costly road to ESL curriculums that simply don't work.

Before his ridiculous decision, immigrants learned English the old fashioned way, through immersion. Immersion simply means that they were surrounded by written and spoken English every day, and had no choice but to learn the language.

That method may have been old school and hard-nosed, but it had one thing going for it: It worked. It worked every time, and it worked at no additional cost.

Disregarding all that, Justice ruled way back then that Texas educators had to re-tool their approach to non-English speaking students, and bilingual education was born.

The approach, as most government approaches are, was costly and counter-productive.

Its concept was to teach core subjects in the student's native language, while teaching them to speak and write English concurrently.

The program not only required the hiring or training of bilingual teachers, and duplicating curriculum materials in both English and Spanish, it also birthed brand new monitoring requirements, and brand new bureaucrats to oversee them.

Over the ensuing 35 years, those new bureaucrats, now firmly entrenched in our school systems, determined that the programs weren't working.

While some progress was being made with elementary grade students, secondary level pupils were failing and dropping out in droves.

A twist in the concept was introduced to target those students, English as a Second Language. ESL provides core instruction with limited use of the student's native language, combined with a heavier focus on English immersion.

While all that was going on, the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) testing was started in 2003. And as TAKS scores of ESL students are analyzed, it has become apparent that the ESL model isn't working.

Those results, and that analysis, was fodder for a lawsuit, which brings us back to Judge Justice and his latest ruling.

The lawsuit was filed in 2007 by MALDEF on behalf of about 145,000 middle and high school students who are considered deficient in English. TAKS test scores show far below average scores for those students in core subjects.

Justice first ruled in 2007 that Texas was meeting its legal obligations to students with limited English proficiency, and said other factors besides a failure of ESL programs might be to blame.

But in July of this year, he reversed himself and ruled that the state was not complying with federal law that requires students to get equal education opportunities. That failure to comply, he said, violated the civil rights of Spanish-speaking students under the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act.

He then ordered that improvements had to be in place by the start of the 2009-10 school year, and required the state submit a preliminary plan for the improvements by Jan. 31, 2009.

The state appealed the ruling on the grounds it has not received funding or authority from the legislature to revamp the programs. Texas requested Justice delay the order, while they appealed the ruling.

Judge Justice, in a new order release Friday, denied the request and reaffirmed the deadlines. The state, he said, could requests for additional funding from Legislature when it convenes in January.

Offering educators no quarter, his ruling said "The time has come to put a halt to the failed secondary English as a Second Language program and monitoring system".

The state can, and probably will, appeal the ruling and request a stay from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the die seems cast to spend more money on the problem.

Education committees in both the Texas House and Senate have already said that they are working on the problem. Typically, that is code language for opening the checkbook.

And while no one has gone on the record with a price tag, some knowledgeable observers have guessed that remedial education for the 140,000 secondary students could cost $500 more per student, or $70 million a year. Add another $30 million in new monitoring programs, and the cost hovers around $100 million per year.

In a way, the judge was correct. The time has come to put an end to ESL. The time has also come to end bilingual education entirely.

The fix, however, will not come from piles of money being thrown into "new think" teaching programs. What we need, is some old school thought.

What we need, is the intestinal fortitude to address the problem forthrightly.

Students who don't speak English are entering Texas schools. They are disadvantaged to begin with, yet still expected to meet the norms of English speaking students.

And while this lawsuit, and the vast majority of bilingual and ESL programs focus on Hispanic children, we can't ignore children who come from Asian and European countries.

Do we need coursebooks in Japaneese, Chinese and Russian as well?

No, we don't. The solution is not to attempt core teaching in every language under the sun.

The solution is to intercept those students at the door, and put them into classes that do nothing but teach English. All day, every day.

When they are proficient in reading, speaking and writing English, and able to succeed in an English based educational system. Then, and only then, do we advance them to core classes. That would be real, old school immersion, and that would really work.

Yes, it might take a year or two. Yes, they might graduate a couple of years late.
But the benefit of truly knowing the language of their new country would serve them for a lifetime.

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Shoe Bomber Excercises Freedom To Bear Arms... Err.. Bare Feet

Loafer hurling reporter unwittingly highlights new Iraqi freedoms.

Muntazer al-Zaidi fired the shoe heard 'round the world Sunday. Bush was graceful in his dodge and response, The Iraqi government was embarrassed, and YouTube was enriched. The incident sparked protest over al-Zaidi's subsequent arrest, and provided fodder for countless columns, videos, and even games.

The reporter intended to insult our President, and in that corner of the world, he might have succeeded. But it can be argued that he succeeded, as well, in underscoring the tangible freedoms now enjoyed by the people of Iraq because of the leadership of the man he attacked.

Before Saddam Husein's ouster, Iraqi press conferences consisted of a madman telling a fearful press what to write. Who could forget Baghdad Bob denying the American military's presence, even as our shells whistled through the windows of his office in the Ministry of Information.

And in the face of incontrovertible evidence, the Iraqi press were too cowed to challenge him. Things are different now.

Not only does Iraq have a newly resurgent and hard-nosed press corps, they also have citizens willing to rally in the streets against their own government, which in the long run is a good thing.

True, the incident gave rise to some tongue-in-cheek commentary too witty to pass up, such as this passage from the American Spectator:

Bush acquitted himself well during the incident. He has crashed on his mountain bike a few times and choked on a pretzel, but even reluctant historians will have to acknowledge that his athletic side has proven helpful at several crucial moments during the war on terror. Before the eyes of the world, as Mark Steyn has written, he was able to throw out first pitches at baseball games effectively and now he has calmly dodged Zaidi's pair of shoes.

The Secret Service, however, looked pretty leaden. What happens to an agent who fails to take a shoe for the president? A kernel of a Clint Eastwood-style movie might be contained in this. Zaidi was screened, according to the Secret Service, but perhaps a more astute team would have looked into his eyes and seen his sole. That he managed to get two throws in, with only Maliki's hand to protect Bush, is astonishing.

Heretofore Helen Thomas and Adam Clymer had posed the greatest threats to Bush. But how could he have anticipated this burst of media bias? An administration famous for requiring passengers to take off shoes before boarding planes will now have to ask reporters to do the same before asking questions.

It is funny, but that humor is in stark contrast to what the story would have been had a reporter thrown a shoe at Saddam. That transgression would have resulted in the eradication of the home village of the reporter, not merely his arrest.

We have made progress over there, and the peoples of the world are better off for it.

Future administrations will enjoy a relationship with Iraq Bush couldn't have dreamed of, and history will judge him far better than the shoe bomber does.

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The Spark of Invention --- Sen. John Cornyn

Texas Senator John Cornyn celebrates the inventiveness of our state in a posted-for-release piece.

“If only I had thought of that first.” How many times have you heard that statement? Maybe you have said it yourself. The dream of inventing fascinates many Americans, and Texans have contributed greatly to America’s renowned tradition of invention.

Over the years, Texans have put their stamp on the world through products ranging from condensed milk to electric typewriters to cutting edge computer and medical components, even cheerleader pompons. It began early in our history with Gail Borden, Jr., newspaper publisher and public official in the Republic of Texas, who invented condensed milk and started the famous dairy company that still bears his name.

A key inventor in the development of the Texas energy industry was Houston’s Howard Hughes – not the aviator or film producer, but his father. Howard Sr. designed an oil drilling bit that cut through hard rock 10 times faster than any other. It helped create Baker Hughes, a global oilfield service company with more than 35,000 employees.

Terrell native and Southern Methodist University graduate Robert Dennard of IBM patented one-transistor Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM). Now used in virtually every computer, it provides more memory at a lower cost.

An invention patented in1988 by Dr. Julio C. Palmaz of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio transformed cardiac care. The Palmaz Stent, a tiny tube used to treat clogged arteries, sharply reduced the need for open-heart surgeries.

Ned Eastman Barnes overcame obstacles facing African-Americans in the early 20th century and received patents for his invention of significant pieces of railroad equipment. Lawrence “Herkie” Herkimer wanted to help cheerleaders fire up the fans, so he invented the pompon to attract attention. The success of the pompon helped build a national corporation of cheerleader camps, equipment and supplies.

Texans continue to respond to the challenges of emerging or rapidly changing technologies. Texas Instruments engineer Jack Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his invention of the integrated circuit. It facilitated development of the microprocessor and helped launch the computer age.

Borden, Dennard, Palmaz and Kilby are among several Texans named to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Several Texans have even received the Nobel Prize, the National Medal of Technology or the National Medal of Science.

And just last year, Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey of Houston was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the legislative branch’s highest civilian award for his revolutionary contributions to cardiovascular medicine, including the roller pump and the DeBakey Ventricular Assist Device, an apparatus implanted into the heart to increase blood flow.

Inventors are at work throughout Texas today. Last year, Texas residents filed nearly 16,000 patent applications, second only to California. One may be coming soon from UT Dallas doctoral student Harvey Liu. He was a finalist in the 2008 College Inventors Competition. Harvey developed a bandage the university described as “a wonder-cloth that helps preserve transplant organs, improve circulation and heal wounds.”

The desire to explore, discover, invent, build and expand is ingrained in the character of Texas. It can be traced back to our pioneers. Living on farms or ranches at the edge of the frontier, their existence depended on learning self-sufficiency and solving their own problems. Today that spirit of invention lives on. There’s no telling what revolutionary products Texans will come up with next.


Sen. Cornyn serves on the Armed Services, Judiciary and Budget Committees. He serves as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee's Immigration, Border Security and Refugees subcommittee and the Armed Services Committee's Airland subcommittee. He served previously as Texas Attorney General, Texas Supreme Court Justice, and Bexar County District Judge.

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When Will The Senate-Mobile Roll Out Of Detroit?

If it weren't so serious, watching a few senators who don't have enough sense to run a shoe-shine stand tell auto executives how to make cars and trucks would be downright funny.

In my lifetime, The almighty US Congress has dabbled in a lot of things that they had no business dabbling in. Of those, I would say it's a clean sweep the number that they managed to make worse.

Take education, which should be the purview of local and state bodies. The Washington solution is always to protect teachers unions, and throw more money at the problem. Ask any common sense individual, and they'll tell you the solution to our education problem is real discipline in the classroom, real world teaching methods that don't involve student esteem concerns, and getting rid of tenure protected teachers who can't or won't do their jobs.

Health Care is another D.C. success story. Between lawyers running around exploiting every loophole to sue doctors and medical facilities, and insurance regulations so convoluted that competition has died, it's a mess only politicians could have created. Obama's solution will be to nationalize and socialize medicine. The confusion won't lessen, but the quality and extent of services you can hope for will.

The Congress has also "fixed" welfare a number of times, with every repair involving a lessening of benefits, esoteric book-keeping methods, and a denial of the fact the the system is not self sustaining, and must somehow be ended.

They also solved Major League Baseball's steroid problem, only a few years after they liberated Afghanistan from Russia, and created Osama Bin Ladin in the process.

In short, our glorious representatives, for the most part, are a bunch of pompous have-done-nothings with no real hope of ever doing anything meaningful.

It is this august body who will now, with a wave of their checkbook, "fix" Detroit.

Will they use the model of Toyota, who is operating factories on our soil quite profitably?

No, they'll go back to Plan A. They'll protect the UAW, throw money at businesses that don't make profits, and demand Detroit become "Green". By the way, "Green" is a code word that means "Al Gore would approve".

They will create a few agencies, a new "Car Czar", and enough regulations and bureaucrats to insure that every Obama campaign worker will have a government job for life.

In short, they'll do the only thing they really know how to do.

How does that old saying go? If the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

In Washington's case, the whole world seems in need of regulating.

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Reasons To Be Thankful

This year has been tough, and the next promises to be tougher. Why do we gather to give thanks?

With today's news constantly warning of dire economic time ahead, and a culture that sometimes looks to be unraveling at the seams, it must seem strange to residents of other countries that Americans still pause and find reason to give thanks to God for blessings that seem to be evaporating.

But those blessings are not all material, and the most important have proven to be quite durable and constant. The Pilgrims who started the tradition of Thanksgiving were not giving thanks for riches. They gathered to simply celebrate survival in a new land, and a new freedom to worship and prosper as they wished, without fear of persecution.

With a little thought, one can find several of the most important of these blessings listed in the preamble to our enduring Constitution:

'A more perfect union' - America may have stumbled, and we might have some rocky roads ahead, but we are still a better place to live than anywhere else in the world. Through the protections of our constitutional rights, Americans enjoy more freedom and opportunity than any other citizenry, and we are still that shining city on the hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of.

'Establish justice' - Can anyone argue that we, as Americans, don't enjoy a far better chance for a fair trial by jury, and rights of appeal equaled by none?

'Domestic tranquility' - Sure, we might argue among ourselves, but no one expects Rhode Island to call up their militia and attack Massachusetts. And as bad as 9-11 was, Britain, Ireland and Pakistan all have long histories of internal terrorism that we have managed to avoid.

'The common defense' - Our military troops are the bravest, best equipped and best trained force in the world. By bringing the battle to terrorists on their soil, they prevent those battles from being fought here. And not to be forgotten, the men and women of our law enforcement agencies fight a quiet, often unheralded war of their own, succeeding in alleyways and boardrooms to keep the lawless from preying on the defenseless'.

'The general welfare' - While the cradling arms of our welfare system may seem too extensive to many, starvation, pestilence and plague have been virtually eliminated within our borders.

'The blessings of liberty' - The freedom to speak out and question our elected leaders is one few people realize the power of. In many places of the world, the debate and dissent we enjoy are cause for mass executions. When we vote, we exercise the power to change the directions and policies of a nation from a curtained booth. This is an awesome privilege few have, and many hunger for.

And lastly, 'Our posterity' - All that we do as citizens and parents can be summed up in a few words: "To make things better for our children than they were for ourselves." And there is, and never has been, another place like America to make that a reality.

This year, while we offer praise, prayers and thanks for health and wealth, let's remember the underlying reasons we enjoy these things, and give thanks for those as well.

Happy Thanksgiving, and God bless!

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Are Failing Auto Makers The New Katrina?

New Orleans sat paralyzed while it's levees broke, and the rising tide of sludge and apathy ruined thousands. Have politicians and Detroit's automakers taken the same approach?

Just as New Orleans was warned before Katrina struck and the levees collapsed, the rising tide of red ink surrounding the big three automakers has caused numerous alarm bells in Detroit and Washington, and no one listened.

The unions have a stranglehold on the auto companies, and refused to relinquish it even when management turned blue in the face. The issues for years have been wages and health care. The unions, of course, want both increased.

Management is trapped between the threat of massive labor strikes, and a new global market that chugs merrily along, happily cutting it's competitors throats with the sharp edge of market based wages.

The Big Three are paying their workers $20 more per hour than Toyota, and losing $500 for every car they turn out.

Auto prices rose, lining the pockets of foreign manufacturers with easy profits. Despite the increase, American companies were losing money on every car they built, and the unions chose to ignore that in contract talks. While politicians who could have broken the death grip fiddled, the storm tide began to rise...

Gas prices shot up and stayed there, the housing bubble burst, consumer confidence ebbed, and new car dealers began noticing some rust on their inventory. Higher still, the waters rose...

Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac and Lehmans all toppled. We all learned what a collateralized debt obligation was, AIG wobbled and credit seized up. Even people wanting to buy cars were having trouble getting loans. Dealers laid of salesmen, and finally the waters crested against the weakened levees of Detroit's capital reserves.

Stockholders finally took notice of the money leaks, and bailed themselves out by dumping stock. Washington doled out $25 billion, but it was like sending Ray Nagle a couple of boats. Nothing remained to halt the disaster.

Well, the levees are broken, and automakers are busted. As with AIG, it isn't just a case of large companies folding. The problems are much deeper than that.

Faced with a massive surge of laid off workers, the state of Michigan sees itself unable to cover the potential unemployment cost in an area that is far from labor-hungry. The state would also be saddled with the health care of millions of retired union workers whose insurance plans will collapse when union dues stop funding them.

A perfect storm has hit, and the rising cries from the rooftops begin. It will be taxpayers who are expected, once more, to break out the life rafts and row in a boatload of rescue funds. Only the nagging question of Washington agreeing to a bail-out remains.

Be serious.

The Democratic party is neck deep in debt to Big Labor. Even Obama, who raised enough money to single-handedly bail out Ford, relied heavilly on Labor for the grass roots work of his campaign.

And Republicans, who should be the party decrying the government's involvement in any capital enterprise, remember all to well the political damage inflicted on them for appearing unable or unwilling to help suffering Americans during Katrina.

They won't risk long unemployment lines appearing nightly on the news, while Wolf Blitzer wonders how the minority party could ignore such suffering on the part of middle class, blue collar Americans.

Upshot is, politicians in both parties can be relied on to reach into the back pockets of taxpayers for the pay-off. All the debates, posturing and committee meetings at this point are purely for show.

After much public angst, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will pass a bail-out bill. They will pretend to pressure Bush to sign it, and whether he does or not, its a win-win for the Dems.

If Bush signs, the automakers and unions will have been 'saved' due to congressional action and pressure.

If Bush veto's the thing, then it will languish until January, when Obama will ride into Washington, sign the check, and save the day.

We citizens don't have a lot of say in the matter. Calling our Congressmen will do no good. Already short on numbers in a lame duck session, the Republicans who represent our neck of the woods are essentially powerless.

So the question is not should we shore up an industry based on a failing business model with no hope of recovery. The question is when will it happen.

So break out those checkbooks, folks. Higher taxes are coming, and coming fast.

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How Long Do We Have?

This is a reprint, in italics, of an email I received a few days ago. It had been forwarded so many times, I have no idea who to give the credit for authorship to.

I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print.

God help us, not that we deserve it.


How Long Do We Have?

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years"

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 - Republicans: 29

Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 - Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million - Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 - Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..." Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase. That would be step 7.

Will Obama put us into step 8?

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are not in favor of this, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE

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Veterans Day 2008

Today, we say thanks to men and women who fought, bled and died for our country.

A simple "thanks" to our vets never seems enough.

We lay down wreaths in remembrance of men and women who laid down their lives, and it always feels short of the full due.

How to express the pride, gratitude and debt we owe to these people who left home and fought for the ideals and privileges we take for granted today?

That inexpressible debt is not just owed from American citizens to our troops, it is owed to American troops by people all across the world. People who would today be speaking German, Japanese or Russian instead of their native tongue were it not for spilled American blood.

Our young troops today are dying in defense of the people of young democracies fighting for their very existence. They walk the cold border walls and stand in front of threatened embassy walls, so our diplomats can make the American case in the world courts.

How then, to express the gratitude we feel?

Words fail for the size of the task, and we're left with a simple "Thank you, and God bless!"

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Has Obama's Test Already Started?

In the waning days of the U.S. Presidential campaign, Joe Biden ominously predicted Obama would be tested early in his term. Has it already started?

Less than twenty-four hours after Barack Obama was elected, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to deploy Iskander missiles within striking distance of Poland.

To be fair, what prompted the move was heartburn in Moscow over a U.S. proposed missile defense system to be placed in Poland. The White House says the system is to counter an Iranian missile capability, and the Kremlin says it reduces Russia's nuclear deterrent capability.

The conflict has been brewing between Washington and Moscow for almost a year, and wasn't prompted by Obama's election.

What does seem to be driven by the election, or at least coincident with it, is a resurgent willingness in Moscow to rattle it's saber any time world events don't go it's (read that Vladmir Putin's) way.

Take, for example, the recent show of power by the Russian navy, steaming around the world to Venezuela, and violating the long respected Marshall Doctrine in the process. Russia doesn't need oil from Hugo Chavez, and they can ill afford a client state headed by a madman in this hemisphere.

So, why the cruise?

The opportunity to beard the U.S. in it's own back yard, and get a good read on both of the men who might lead it the next four years must have been irresistible.

Take note that Russia is rejecting out of hand current overtures made by Condoleeza Wright to resolve the issue, preferring instead to settle the problem when Obama takes office.

And finally, today, Putin sounded threats that Russia might reduce oil production to shore up the falling price of crude. This would be an unprecedented action. Moscow has traditionally backed away from OPEC involvement or OPEC style maneuvering in the world crude market.

So, why the waiting game, and why the threat?

Emboldened by Obama's hesitancy to denounce Russia's invasion of Georgia, judging that to signal inexperience or weakness, could Putin be thinking back to the glory years of Nikita Khrushchev? If he is, was it Obama that reminded him?

During the campaign, as Putin was making he-man news in his karate gi, Obama chose the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit as an illustration on why talking to our enemies early in his administration, without preconditions, would be a good idea.

Khrushchev, the fabled hardliner who pushed a young John Kennedy to remove NATO missiles from Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis, may well be the history chapter Obama needs to brush up on.

Kennedy is fondly remembered by pop culture history, but that summit was a foreign policy disaster from every contemporary or serious historic perspective. Khrushchev abused and berated the young President endlessly, and ended the meetings by telling Kennedy "We will bury you!".

Kennedy, who told his aides that Khrushchev had "just beat the hell out of me", left worried, knowing that the Russian thought he, and by extension, the U.S., was weak.

That perceived weakness came back to haunt him less than a year later, when Kennedy quietly traded away the missiles in Turkey to buy Khrushchev and the Russian nukes out of Cuba.

It is widely believed that in an effort to regain some prestige, Kennedy later decided to force the issue by committing to direct conflict in Vietnam, and we all know what a brilliant foreign policy move that was.

Actually, when a dispassionate study of the Kennedy presidency is made, it is hard to find anything he did right in the foreign arena. Rather than backing the Russians down, he bought them off. The Bay of Pigs was bad, but Vietnam was worse. One could argue he spent his remaining days in office after that crucial summit trying to impress Khrushchev.

And here we are, forty years later, in another game of chicken with Moscow, defending a fledgling democracy from the Russian bear, each side using missiles as bargaining chips, and a young, untested Democrat president set to mount the world stage and talk the problem away over a Mocha Latte.

Deja Vu? In spades.

I, for one, don't believe that Georgia's admission into NATO is in our interest, and it is the subject of another essay whether the Bush Doctrine promotes an expansion of freedom, or is simply an excuse to go and build an empire of influence.

I don't even think it debatable that Bush's lack of attention to the old Eastern Bloc, and to our relations with Russia, has forced this conflict. Neither do I think that the issue at hand.

What is at hand is how to defuse and normalize relations with Russia, without wasting the little political capital we have left with them. What Reagan started, Bush 41, Bill Clinton and Bush 43 have squandered. Russia's path into democracy has been ugly, and they now seem to be retracing their steps.

I believe we are looking at the beginning of the new old Soviet Union, with Putin at the helm. The hardliners are coming back into power, and the Brezhnev Doctrine won't be far behind.

It might behoove our President-Elect to tear a page from Sarah Palin's playbook, and spend an afternoon talking with Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger might have misjudged Gorbachev. He surely wouldn't have known what to make of Boris Yeltsin, but he knew exactly what Khrushchev was made of, and Putin is cast in the very same mold.

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Is America Lurching Left?

Do the election results spell the end of a center-right country?

I have heard many pundits recently saying we are a center-right country. Most of them were speaking in context of yesterday's elections, and most of them now appear ridiculously wrong.

How could their assertions possibly be true? This election was a seismic shift to the Democratic ticket. According to all analysis, the move cut across every demographic, and was independent of region or party. In short, a mass migration to the left.

It is the largest electoral move since the Gingrich revolution in the early 90's, and decidedly opposite in it's direction.

Not only did we overwhelmingly elect a Democratic president, we increased the majority of a Democrat controlled Congress that enjoyed the lowest approval ratings in history. Democrats in both the House and Senate realized gains, although it seems Harry Reid will still have to contend with the filibuster option on the Senate side.

The left also picked up several governorships, and increased their contingent in almost every state house.

So, are we now, as a country, leaning left?

The answer is no. Voters in California, Florida and Arizona all either passed Gay Marriage Bans, or defeated efforts to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions. This fact serves as a cultural bellwether, at least in California and Florida.

Both of these states went to the Democrats, and California vies with Oregon as the most liberal state in the country. The youth vote was huge in both states, and gay marriage was still not able to gain the popular nod.

Voter anger over federal intervention in the business sector, including the recent 700 billion dollar bail-out package, indicates we still don't want Washington in our business.

The uproar over Obama's comments regarding his plan to "spread the wealth", a remark that almost cost him the election, indicates we don't like politicians in our pocketbook, either.

So why the swing? George W. Bush.

This election was nothing more than a referendum on the sitting President. In fact, the parallels between this year, and Jimmy Carter's victory in 1976, are striking.

In both elections, the nation had a choice between a young, inexperienced populist and the party of an unpopular, embattled President who remained shuttered up behind the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Both elections featured an experienced Republican who had trouble finding a message, and a media reluctant to investigate their opponent on any substantive issues.

Both elections were characterized by a groundswell of young, angry voters, and both decisions went to the newcomer, along with gains in congress.

This year, Obama's promise of 'change' was enough to seal the deal. Even an undefined and nebulous sort of change sounded better than "four more years of the same".

Conservatives can blame the defeat suffered in 2008 on a President who refused to communicate his thinking to the country, and refused to engage in any debate on ideology or principals.

Bush surrendered the domestic arena to a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They used every crisis as an opportunity to pin blame on Bush, and he never defended himself or his party.

He never used his veto pen to arrest an out of control spending binge, and he never sounded the alarm over the economic crisis.

Bush and his economic team knew the crisis was coming, and their last two budgets to Congress included strong statements warning of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's impending collapse. While they did plead with Congress to reform the giant lenders, Bush never took to the national pulpit to warn us voters. Had he done so, he would have looked like a genius when it happened, and Republican's could have seized the initiative of change and reform that rightfully belonged to them from the Democrats.

Pelosi and Reid immediately pointed to deregulation as the problem, and a useless national media joined in the ploy. Talking heads populated the airwaves, discussing the evils of deregulation, when the real problem was a failure of congress and federal agencies like the SEC to exercise the expansive regulatory powers they had, and still have.

When "two more years of the same" should have been a nationwide Republican attack ad, congressional candidates were instead scrambling to hide their party affiliation with an invisible president who rivaled Nixon in his fortress mentality.

This failure to preside cost the Republicans the election, and will probably result in a larger, more intrusive federal government who feels a mandate to reach deeper into our wallets.

As Joe Biden said, we will all be forced to "be part of the deal", like it or not.

Liberals now have two years to compile a record that will be judged strictly to their account, and conservatives have the same two years to tailor their message of smaller government and traditional values to a younger electorate.

Republicans must also find a way to bypass a hostile, liberal media in order to broadcast that message, or the party will whither on the vine. That can only be done by direct communication to their constituents, and that means packing up every weekend, leaving Washington, and hitting the stump in their home districts.

Obama ran as a centrist, disavowing any connection with extreme members of his party, and promising tax cuts to the middle class. His promise is to be a pragmatic and communicative leader. How he responds to the wild-eyed liberalism of Pelosi-Reid will be key to his success or failure.

How will he meld a centrist pragmatism, when he has an 800 million dollar election debt to members of the hard left? He will have a swooning media to assist him, and we can expect an instructive display of how the Presidential bully pulpit really works.

It should be an interesting two years.

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When The Talking Points Are Pointless

Barring a mass revolt by the lawyers, we'll have a new President-Elect by tomorrow. Regardless of who is elected, do we know how he will govern?

No. We don't.

We have all heard the speeches, and if you listened to more than one, you probably heard the same thing every time. And, I bet that sounded a lot like what what you heard in the debates. Or maybe it was the same as what you heard on Meet The Press, Face The Nation or Larry King.

And therein lies the problem with how we select our President. Softball debates and set-piece speeches don't test the skills needed to do the job. All the time and money wasted on domestic policy debates (taxes, energy, education, etc.) would be much better spent learning what the candidates believe, and what makes them tick.

What is their core philosophy of government? How do they make big decisions? Where do they see America on the world stage? When, if ever, do they believe our national interest trump the needs of the world?

Here's a for instance: Obama and McCain have told us, time and time again, what they want to do about taxes. And we all know that come November 5th, everything they said goes out the window.

The President has no power, beyond a veto threat and the bully pulpit, to shape domestic policy. Congress does that. Where the office does have power, is in how to administer the programs Congress sends up, and what direction to take foreign policy.

Which is why the record, character and core beliefs of the candidate matter far more than any tax policy they spout out.

The cabinet members they would appoint mean a great deal more than whether they stutter or stammer now and then. And would it hurt us to discover that they really do have a 'litmus test' for judges? I know I do, and I bet you do, too.

The media calls it "going negative" when one candidate questions the other's truthfulness, associations, record or decision making process. Then, they run countless polls to discern if the negativity drives away voters. While bemoaning the denigration of the process, they ignore that they should be the ones 'going negative'.

A reporter's job is to be respectfully cynical and distrustful of every candidate. It is to ask the hard questions, and to dig around in dusty old archives looking for errors in judgment the candidates have made.

If they did that job correctly, office seekers wouldn't have to wallow in the mud in front of the world. They could speak about their vision for the country, and their approach to getting there. And when a skeleton fell out of the closet, it should be up to the skeleton owner to answer the hard questions in a press conference.

The media did us a huge disservice by not really investigating Obama's association with Chicago's radical elite. They shorted us when they didn't ask him about the hubris required to run for president after serving in the Senate only 145 days. They didn't ask about his meddling in foreign policy before he was elected, and after Joe the Plumber outed him, not one reporter mentioned the word "socialist" to Obama. That's just plain malpractice.

The press also failed us by never forcing McCain to explain his pick of Sarah Palin. I never heard a`reporter challenge him about the erratic decision to suspend his campaign during the bail-out negotiations. And besides the fact that he served for a long time on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, do you know anything about how he voted on that committee? Not if you were counting on CNN, you don't.

During the debates, we should have heard more hypothetical questions. Imagine how much better informed we would be if both men had been asked 'If Israel attacks Iran, how will you respond?'

The only candidate that was asked anything like that was Governor Palin, and she declined to answer, saying we shouldn't second guess Israel. Palin was also asked to list some Supreme Court decisions that she disagreed with. She famously fumbled the answer, but the point is that would have been a great question for all four candidates.

It's funny that both Vice Presidential candidates were given more fastball questions than either of the guys at the top of the ticket. Biden went into a wobble, and blathered his way through most of them, while Palin just blinked and offered a retreaded position speech.

McCain, nor Obama, was ever put in a position to reach any deeper into their thinking than a well parsed talking point would cover, and we are all the worse for that.

Let's hope we get lucky, and the wisdom of the crowd gets it right, because we damn sure don't have a good reason to vote for either one.

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Challenge To The County - School Sports Reports

The Advocate is looking for parents, students or teachers willing to take some notes and pictures of school sports events.

Hi guys! Is there anyone out there willing to contribute some stories about Upshur County school sports?

Now is your chance to highlight your team's accomplishments. Please take down scores and digital pictures, and email them to upshuradvocate@gmail.com.

Please forward this post to any school coaches you know. We would also love to have coaches submit a 'Coaches Corner' article, discussing upcoming games, and what the keys to victory might be.

Till next time,

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Polls Confuse The Issue

Is it just me, or has everybody had enough of dueling polls?

I know the polls we see daily are supposed to be 'scientific'. I know Zogby and Rasmussen and the rest work very hard at getting the adjustments right. I also know that we all seem to concentrate on the horserace instead of the stakes.



What if we had an election, and the pollsters didn't come? Imagine, if instead of thirty second candidate sound bites, followed by ten minutes of "poll analysis", you could here a candidate say more than two sentences on a newscast. Would you listen pay more attention to the candidate's words? Would the numbers we discuss be tax breaks and spending plans, instead of who's leading who where?

In the main, the polls tend to disagree and contradict each other, adding fodder to an already over excited national media. The polls become the news, and the candidates are reduced to soundbites. That's bad for us all.

Let's face it: We all want to be on the winning side, and polling data tends to herd the independents and undecided towards the candidate perceived to be leading. That muddies the waters of the election, and turns our most solemn duty as citizens into a football pool.

For the same reason that news organizations shouldn't call results until the polls close, opinion polls should be left to the campaigns, and opinions should be left to voters.

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Challenge To The County - Questions For The Candidates

The first of many challenges, I hope. If you would, please list in the comments of this post, what are the three biggest concerns you would like to see the candidates address?
Remember, we have candidates for the following:

US Senate
US House of Representatives
Railroad Commissioner (wonder what they do? look here)
Chief Justice, Supreme Court (candidate unopposed)
Justice, Supreme Court
Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals
State Representative (candidate unopposed)
Sheriff
County Tax Assessor
County Commissioner
Constable (candidate unopposed)

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Why Start The Upshur Advocate?

The reason I started this little online experiment is because there is a whole county full of news going unreported. And there is a whole new breed of citizen-reporters out there, with the desire and where-with-all to see the successes and missteps in their part of the county documented and addressed. People who are party to the happenings that often are only told by word of mouth.

How many school board meetings, volleyball games, orchestrated acts of kindness and citizenship have you witnessed or been a part of, that never made the printed page? I'm betting plenty, and now, we have a way to link up, share our piece of Upshur, and keep everyone up to speed.

I'll be honest with you. I'm not a reporter. What I am, is a concerned parent and citizen who thinks we are all less informed and proactive than we should be.

Do I think we have huge problems in Upshur? No, I don't. In fact, I think, in the seven years since my family and I moved here, we have met some of the most honest, hard working and down to earth people anyone could ask to meet.

I am a little ashamed, though, that when I voted today, there were people on the ballot I didn't know, and had never heard speak. Why do they want the job they are running for, and why do they think they are the best person for it? I can't answer that tonight, but I hope this site will have a chance to rectify that. If you feel the same way, help me get this thing going.

What it takes, are fair people with a little time, a little civic pride, an internet connection, and maybe a digital camera. When you have an opportunity to attend a civic event, the privilege to witness a good turn, the pleasure of watching your child kick some butt in a school activity, or the misfortune of finding a problem that needs fixing, send me an email, or comment in the 'Letters To The County" section.

Ask some questions, take some notes, snap a few pictures and send it here. I'm hoping we develop a large enough readership that we can follow up and get some answers.

We're going to develop contacts with pastors, principles, superintendents, commissioners, coaches, teachers, business owners and others. We're going to ask them to contribute their thoughts and knowledge to the site. The dialog will be polite and respectful, like I think our broader political and social discourse should be.

The thing I think that we all forget nowadays, is that we are all in this together. We citizens and voters are the ultimate bosses, that's true. But it is also true that we are the best resource this county, and indeed, this country has. An engaged, informed, and active citizenry is the only way we maintain, grow and prosper the promise that started in Philadelphia over two hundred and thirty years ago. When we ask our elected officials to work with us, and are willing to work with them, we all win.

I believe America is essentially a centrist country, but I also think partisanship has an important place in process. What we see at the national and state level, however, isn't partisanship, it's polarization. Partisanship should be the competition of ideas in the marketplace of what works. These days, it's defined as a concerted effort on both sides to demean, demonize and nullify people and ideas. That's not competition, it's warfare, and it's tearing this country apart.

What we see in debates are endless talking points, a few flare-ups, and everyone waiting for the "gotcha moment". And more and more, the guy who can round-up and turn-out the biggest number of angry, greedy, or clueless voters is the guy that wins.

When we are at our best, is when we face challenges like 9-11. The times we look around, and realize that sixty percent of us are closer to the middle than we thought; When we ignore the radical fifteen percent on either side, and set our minds to do what is best for the whole one hundred percent, we shine. And what that takes, it seems, is simply a common goal.

That's why I chose the name 'Advocate' for the site. We need to advocate for common sense solutions and basic decency in discourse and dissent, We need to exhibit the neighborly concern for our communities that we hope our children will attain. And short of dishonesty or thievery, we need to realize that the people who lift the mantle of elected burden are, after all, just people. We need to stop looking for the 'gotcha' and the 'gimme', and start looking for results and progress.

Maybe I'm thinking big, but the next election cycle, I would like to see this site in a position to sponsor some candidate forums, so there are some faces and facts to go with the names the next time we pull we the lever.

To accomplish that, it takes enough voices to be heard. The only way this site does that is to generate a consistent, interactive readership. And the best way I know to accomplish that is to put you to work for the cause, and give you some benefit for doing it.

The work part, we've already covered. Get out there, get involved, and let the readers of this site hear about it.

The benefit? Well, we will have classified ads, lost and found listings, and even some business ads for free. We'll announce church, school, civic and social events for free, and we'll make sure our kid's pictures show up prominently when they sink that last second outside jumper.

And we'll turn up the heat when something just isn't right, and try to shed some collective light on the things that are.

Till next time!

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