For all the people who skipped voting on the recent bond issues (or anything), the following ditty echoes for me:
If I always do what I always did
Likely I’ll get what I always got
Yet were I to do what I’ve never done
Then I might win what I’ve never won.
That was penned by an oldtime New York ad man whose name has slipped my mind, trying to get businesses to advertise themselves a little differently to improve their numbers.
But just think of how many things it actually applies to!
Take politics. To all the straight ticket voters, who were too scared to vote for a liberal of any persuasion, instead got liars and abusers - this is for you.
Single issues like metropolitan districts and school lines are gerrymandered when “really honest” people who swear to do the right thing are elected and then renege. Hint: They’re taking advantage of your gullibility and fear of “the other”.
Politicians will promise anything to earn their lifetime “social security” from state legislatures and Congress and then never go home, term after term. Their numbers add up.
Shame on them! And you, please stop doing what you always did. Fire those with dismal performance that hurts the common good.
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Speaking of the 89th Legislature meeting in Austin, they’ll wrap this biennial session in just a few weeks. On the one hand, they’ll be done and gone. On the other, consider the mess they’ve wreaked with school vouchers alone!
Billions of dollars allocated, beginning in the 2026-27 school year, that will benefit (so I’ve read) 85% of the existing private school students in Texas. Not the thousands of lower income students who need those dollars to improve their public school systems.
Vouchers won’t raise the abysmal reading and math scores in most school systems, nor increase the graduation rates. Nope. Just a billion bucks the first year alone going to private schools. It’s unknown how many private school desks are now available for new students.
Keep that in mind when (or if) your duly elected State representative comes home whining for donations and boasting of all they did this year. Keep a list of that rep’s promises and the results that fall out later. That litmus test also applies to those sent to Congress.
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Not naming names, but the attack on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other vital federally-funded communications organizations uttered by two Texas representatives in March during committee hearings, was ridiculous. PBS was called “complete garbage” by one of them, who probably was raised on “Sesame Street”.
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Equally insane is House Bill 1375, allegedly intended to protect children, but covers the universe in what it considers obscene. Mainline businesses like newspapers, book stores, and broadcasters are all targeted as obscene by Rep. Nate Schatzline, when he himself has a past that is not exactly squeaky clean and is being investigated.
Similar narrow-mindedness is seen with the furor over a history lesson in a Southeast Texas ISD that concerns a flag in Virginia depicting partial nudity on the state seal, created in 1776.
The Roman figure Virtus fighting tyranny has evolved over the centuries; early clothed depictions were mistaken for a man so the drapery eventually showed a partially exposed left breast. That got the goddess banned from the lesson plan.
That wasn’t the first time the goddess was sensationalized. A Virginia attorney general in 2010 used her figure on staff lapel pins but shielded her nakedness with a full breastplate.
So politics is attacking history, art, museum trips and even the church, criticizing statutes depicting, well, people. That coastal ISD school board banned such “frontal nudity” in school libraries but ignored that kids on area beaches likely are exposed to worse.
It is direct proof that average people with what’s called common sense are badly misrepresented by foolish politicians hoping to get a foot in someone’s door.
It saddens me that our large swath of Red River counties are represented by such narrow-minded individuals who really need to be taught a lesson themselves.
Shelly has worn more hats in the communications field than Carter has pills but forgot to retire when she closed her promotions business. She earned a BA in Journalism at NTSU (before it became UNT) and has never lost her love of words.