Category Archives: Texana

Psst: Wendy lost the Valley

Posted on May 29, 2014 | 6 comments

Abortion Barbie, the great blonde hope of the Texas Democrat party (not to mention the White House’s secret weapon to turn Texas blue, ho, ho), lost big time in the Rio Grande Valley. Too many Hispanics didn’t vote for Wendy.

Could be too many of them dislike abortion and have no interest in promoting someone who not only promotes but symbolizes it. But there was another, quite obvious reason: Democrat voter turnout statewide was down (yep, down) twenty percent from four years ago.

If your own team can’t get excited, Wendy, you’re in deep doo-doo.

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Posted in Texana

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Marty Robbins: Gangsta Rapper

Posted on May 28, 2014 | 2 comments

martyrobbinselpaso

Woke up the other morning inexplicably humming this Marty Robbins oldie, a big hit in 1960, which, of course, you never hear on the radio any more but sure ’nuff did way back then.

I wonder if Scott Chaffin does that from time to time, stirring from a doze in his box seat at the baseball diamond in the sky? Would not be surprised. It was Scott’s idea to include Robbins in the Gangsta Rapper Pantheon. Works for me.

I love the idea that the character of “wicked Felina” was adapted from a girl Robbins had a crush on in fifth grade. As they say, write what you know.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Music, Obsessions, South of the Border, Texana, The Culture

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The coming end to transgender bathrooms

Posted on May 25, 2014 | 2 comments

I don’t think transgender bathrooms are going to work so well. In Houston or anywhere else. Maybe in theory, but not in practice.

Men aren’t likely to complain about the women-pretending-to-be-men who show up, but women are very likely to complain about the men-to-women creatures, especially those who haven’t yet received all of their equipment.

And the women are likely to rule on this as they do in so much else these days.

No, this new aspect of the modern American circus could be folding its tent before you know it.

Via Mouth of The Brazos.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obituaries, Texana, The Culture

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The Texas chicken or egg scandal

Posted on May 24, 2014 | 1 comment

I frankly don’t understand this one, flogged by the Franklin Center at Fox News. Cronyism and corruption in Texas government? Okay, sure.

But how were these state pols supposed to know in advance that the law students they touted to the University of Texas wouldn’t be able to pass the bar?

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Posted in Texana

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Ready for the drought-buster?

Posted on May 22, 2014 | Comments Off on Ready for the drought-buster?

I was joking to Mrs. Charm the other day about the front page story in the daily on the severity of our drought (thanks to an increased population demanding more water) that whenever they highlight a weather problem, the solution is almost at hand.

Well, maybe not the whole solution, but a good wetting, according to WeatherBell’s Joe D’Aleo:

“This time of year is when rain com[e]s to the high plains as moisture gets drawn northwest upslope. They have a second peak in the fall with the early fall storms fed by the seasonal moisture that come[s] into the desert southwest.”

So, while it may not be a repeat of the Memorial Day floods of 1981, the forecast rain of two inches or more over the next ten days, following by a cooler-than-usual (less evaporation) summer and, thanks to El Nino, a wetter-than-normal fall, our long-awaited drought-buster may be almost at hand.

After all, we got three and half inches of rain in an hour at the rancho about this time last year. So it’s only wise to get ready for a real frog-strangler.

UPDATE:  Alas, no frogs were killed in the making of this Memorial Day weekend. We got only 2.5 inches at the rancho—much of it coming on Tuesday— but it was better than none.

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Posted in Mrs. Charm, Texana, Weather

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Affirmative Action’s latest preference: smaller classes

Posted on May 20, 2014 | 2 comments

The University of Texas’ latest engagement in racial and ethnic preferences isn’t a court case defending Affirmative Action but a chemistry course. It’s not dumbed-down but taught in a smaller class of four dozen where individuals are more likely to get special help.

“The TIP program points to the contradiction at the heart of the diversity rationale. In order ‘to obtain the educational benefits of student body diversity,’ UT created programs to vary its standards based on both race and geography. [Chemistry professor David] Laude seems to have found a way to help less-prepared students succeed, and one hopes his approach will prove replicable. But his method entails putting those students in separate courses. That’s difficult to reconcile with the notion that diversity itself is educationally beneficial.”

What’s inarguable is that smaller classes are always better than ones of hundreds of students taught by graduate assistants instead of professors. But with so much of modern academe’s tuition and fees going to pay administrative salaries, they’re unlikely to be available to all.

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Posted in Obsessions, Science/Engineering, Texana, The Culture

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Why We’re Getting So Many Californicators

Posted on May 18, 2014 | 3 comments

“California is a de facto one-party state where no Republican, or even moderate Democrat, can win statewide office. Californians decided at some point that they wanted the worst business environment in the country, terrible public schools, massive waves of illegal immigrants, and job-crushing environmental regulations. And they have, accordingly, elected a one-party Government to deliver those things.”

And folks who don’t like it are leaving in droves. Many of them are coming here, another one-party state. Well, almost. The Democrats haven’t won a statewide Texas office in almost two decades.

Not that I mind. Not at all. Although I could do with fewer Californicators clogging our highways. I do appreciate the seller’s market they’ve helped make of Austin real estate, however.

Via Gay Patriot.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Obsessions, Texana, The Culture, The Economy

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