Pretty Good for a Yankee

I read a blog entry entitled "Education as a Necessity" today and I was quite impressed.  The entry was filled with facts and proof of those facts.  Even though there was some personal opinions, the author backed up those opinions with evidence. Whenever a subject was mentioned there was a follow on link so that the reader could conduct further research on what the author was referring to.  The argument was clear and precise and had plenty of supporting evidence.  The author stated a clear issue and offered multiple solutions or remedies for that problem.  The piece was very well written and he tackled many different sides of the argument.  Overall the entry was informative and convincing, pretty good for a Yankee.  

Hypocrites

Why doesn't the Texas Legislature do something about the fraudulent voting going on in the Legislative Branch?  Oh wait, I just read aloud what I wrote and answered my own question.  This is ridiculous, law makers breaking their own laws.  In the Texas House there is constant fraudulent voting happening right in the open for everyone to see.  The way this is happening is when a Representative is not present to vote, other district Representatives are voting for them by pressing a button on their desk.  And they are obviously voting the way they want to vote, not in the best interest of that representative that is not present.  Fraud!  These are the same people that pass our laws and represent different people and are voted into that position to do just that, represent us.  I don't want my Representatives desk mate or desk neighbor doing the voting for him because many times it is a Republican voting for a Democrat or vice versa.

Now in the beginning of the session, the Legislature creates rules that they all agree to follow and are held accountable for by the Speaker of the House.  Section 47 in the book of Rules and Precedents of the Texas House says that if "any member is found guilty by the house of knowingly voting for another member on the voting machine without that other member’s permission shall be subject to discipline deemed appropriate by the house." The Speakers first duty is to enforce the rules and regulations of the session.  Why isn't he doing something about this?  When asked, he said that he leaves it up to the House members to do the right thing.

This situation is definitely a catch 22 because in order to change this, the Legislature would need to revise the law or pass a new one.  But they are not going to do that because many of them are benefiting by fraudulently voting.  I feel we need to try and do something about this as citizens of democratic country.  We need to find a way to enforce our Representatives to represent only the ones that elected them into office.  Maybe we should create a third party committee that has no way of benefiting from the fraudulent voting because they don't have access at knowing what they are voting for at the time, but are responsible to enforce the voting regulations.  Anything is better than how it is at the moment.  Lets stand up and do something, make your voice heard on this matter, or you may be casting a vote for abortion when you are pro life.  Just saying.

Say What?

I read a blog titled “Election 2012” today and all though there were plenty of statements made; there wasn’t a lot of numbers or hard evidence to back up those statements.  A reader wants irrefutable evidence and statistics to be able to come to the same conclusion as the author or, in other words, to be convinced by the author to see the issue as they do.  Also, the embedded link is confusing because it does not lead to an individual article that the editorial refers to, but to the home page of the website.  This makes it very difficult to research the information being discussed.  I don't know about you but I like to research everything before I form my opinion. 

The message or purpose of the editorial is also very unclear. Is the editorial about the lack of early voting or is it about the fact that early voting was crowded because of everything that was on the ballad or is it about both?  The author should attempt to offer up a clear solution to a clear problem and I did not feel as if that was accomplished.  The author chose a very interesting topic that should be discussed, but as a reader, I was left with many unanswered questions.

Going Back Old School

A few years back there was an 11 girl who was bullied in a Texas school every day of the week relentlessly. One day she came to class and all of the other kids started making fun of her and even telling her that she smelled. This really hurt her feelings and the next day she came into class wearing her mother’s perfume to cover her bad odor, according to her class mates. At this point the teacher tells her that she is interrupting class because she is wearing too much perfume and takes her to the principal’s office, not to be suspended, but to be ticketed by the schools police.

That is how students in the state of Texas have been disciplined since the zero tolerance laws were passed in the mid-1990s. This zero tolerance law was passed because Texas Legislators felt that changing the way schools disciplined students would have a more positive outcome on them and take the that responsibility off of the teachers, but in fact it had the opposite effect. The only people who were seriously affected by these laws were the parents of the students. Expensive fines for horseplay, cursing and putting on perfume went from $50 to $500 for each offense and the parents are the ones paying these fines. Campus police for Texas school districts wrote an average of 275,000 tickets a year and most students are repeatedly ticketed and never learned their lesson.

There is good news for future students of Texas school districts. A new program known as Suspend Kids to School was started about 2 years ago in the Waco Independent School District as a pilot program. It was initiated by the governor’s office to hopefully be a model for the rest of the school districts in the state. Through this program, teachers are being trained to better manage their classrooms so that the disturbance may be handled in the school instead of in the criminal courts. Since this program started the number of Class C misdemeanors dropped 42% in the second year of the programs existence. The number of students referred to alternative schools has also dropped dramatically, 104 students were referred the first year and only 22 the second. It is obvious that the steps we are taking as a state to improve our schools are very positive. I feel the more we go back to the way things used to be and change the ratio of students to teachers, things will continue to get better. We need to train our teachers to hold each other and their students accountable for their actions.  This will be the key to success. Schools are meant to train our kids for the big bad world, and in this world, being accountable for our own actions is half the battle.

Texas Blog Critique

   I just read a blog by Charles Kuffner entitled “Who Doesn’t Like Parks?”  The blog is addressing the use of $166 million in bonds to go toward parks and the fact that the state Republican Party is against it.  The authors’ intended audience is Houston residents that have children or like to go to parks themselves to exercise or ride bikes.  Kuffner has been living in Houston for 10 years and is a grad student from Rice.  His blog “Off the Kuff” is Texas’ longest running political blog. 

   Kuffners’ main argument is that he doesn't understand why the Republican Party would not want to use that money to go towards something like the up keep of parks or putting in new trails.  He makes great points like the fact that taxes are not being raised in order to get this money, it is coming from a bond that isn't being used for anything else at the moment.  One point he makes is that “there’s never been a better time to float bonds, with interest rates at historically low levels.” He even mentions the economic benefits of having parks and bike trails because it attracts businesses to the city.

   The only thing I feel like Kuffner could have done better would have been to show some numbers.  Instead of making just claims like “parks and bike trails are key to attracting businesses,” show the readers some hard evidence of these claims.  Maybe bring in numbers of businesses that are surrounded by parks and bike trails versus the numbers of companies that are not.  Overall I feel he had a fair and legit argument. I agree, don’t Republicans ride bikes too? 

On the Statesman website, there was an editorial titled “Texans Deserve Relief from Prison Health Care Costs” that was written by the Editorial Board addressing the issue of how much tax payers in Texas are paying yearly for the sick and elderly inmates of the state. The authors intended audience is all Texas tax payers who are tired of being punished by taxes while these inmates are being punished as well. It is reported that tax payers spent $1.9 million in 2011 on the top 10 most medically expensive inmates in Texas. In a way the editorial is trying to convince the audience that these inmates are not likely to be of any harm because of their age or medical condition, but what kind of message does that send out to other inmates?  That it’s ok once you are too old or sick because we will send you off to spend your last few years locked down in a nursing home? Even then we will still have to pay a portion of their health care with help from the federal government.  The author does point out that if it is a serious offender the inmate will have to wait until they only have a few months left to live before they can get a waiver for early release.  I don’t think that will be a good overall message to send out.  There is plenty of evidence that something needs to be done but I don’t think we have come up with the solution.  

On Friday, September 21, 2012, the Orange Report posted an article about two UT sororities throwing a racially questionable "fiesta" party downtown. The two sororities rented out a bar downtown and had hundreds of guest come wearing traditional Mexican garb. The party is supposed to be a celebration of Mexican-American culture, but lost its meaning somewhere in the middle.  I think the article is worth reading because it shines a light on a big issue we have here in Texas. The DREAM Act is one step, we need to make the rest together as a community.