Vol. 6, No. 16 - Lone Star Iconoclastlonestaricon.com/online/2005/11iconoclast.pdf · The Lone Star...

Vol. 6, No. 16 — Wednesday, March 16, 2005

BorderBandits,Texas Rangers

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TTTTTexas School Finance Bill Stalls During House Debateexas School Finance Bill Stalls During House Debateexas School Finance Bill Stalls During House Debateexas School Finance Bill Stalls During House Debateexas School Finance Bill Stalls During House DebateLegislators To Start Anew This Week ... Page 2 Iconoclast’s View: EDITORIAL, Page 8

TragicStory Of

BeyondBeyondBeyondBeyondBeyondThe MallThe MallThe MallThe MallThe Mall

Iconoclast Interview

With Protest Singer

DavidDavidDavidDavidDavidRovicsRovicsRovicsRovicsRovicsBy Nathan Diebenow

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David Rovics Performs BenefitFor Waco Friends of Peace and

Unitarian Universalist Church of Waco

BaylorShowtime!

TO PERFORM

0

CacophonyNathan Diebenow’sRUBBER CEMENT INDEX

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Mouse WarsBy Gene Ellis

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...Part 3

“It (activism) sort of ebbs and flows.Right now, it’s in a bit of an ebb, but I thinkthat’s bound to change because there areso many pressures that will lead to peoplepouring out into the streets, and thosethings are inevitable — the draft, environ-mental catastrophes, the further impover-ishment of the majority of the people here,and the growing riches of the wealthy elite,and all these kinds of forces will createopposition.”

— David Rovics

2 — Wednesday, March 16, 2005www.iconoclast-texas.com

The Lone Star Iconoclast

TTTTTexas School Finance Billexas School Finance Billexas School Finance Billexas School Finance Billexas School Finance BillStalls During House DebateStalls During House DebateStalls During House DebateStalls During House DebateStalls During House Debate

AUSTIN — The Texas House ad-journed Friday after debating and notcoming to consensus over a $5.4 billionschool finance tax plan. The 150-mem-ber body was to start from scratch Mon-day, a move that would allow itsmembers to rethink the plan during theweekend to garner a better understand-ing of its elements, and for certain lead-ers to research whether one elementwould fall under an income tax defini-tion..

The GOP-led plan calls for reductionin property taxes by a third, with thismoney to be replaced with revenue fromother taxes. Included would be a hike inthe overall sales tax, plus increases inthe cigarette tax, the gasoline tax, anda levy on snack foods. Also included is imple-mentation of a new payroll tax or a versionof the existing corporate franchise tax,whichever a business prefers to pay.

Some members of the House de-scribed the proposed bill as compli-cated, noting that they prefer a solid taxbill that should not be rushed into.

Democrats labeled the proposed billas unfair and one that will not improveschool finance in the long run, instead

simply increasing the wealth of the richat the cost of the poor.

One point of uncertainty discussed

Friday was the extension of the fran-chise tax to include not only corpora-tions that currently pay a franchise tax,

but also partnerships that do not. TheRepublican House bill would give busi-nesses the option of paying a franchisetax of either .25 percent of the value oftheir net assets or 4.5 percent of theirnet corporate income, whichever isgreater, or instead paying a payroll taxof 1.15 percent on each employee’swages, up to $90,000 per worker. Thequestion was whether expansion of thefranchise tax would count as impositionof an income tax on businesses. Thestate constitution requires a vote fromthe populace to create a personal in-come tax or a tax based on anindividual’s or association’s share ofpartnership income.

Another loophole of concern was thepossibility of a company’s inclination toreduce its taxation by dividing into morethan one entity and choosing the fran-chise tax option for the one with most ofits employees and payroll tax option forthe one with most of its capital.

After the House approves a plan, it willbe the Senate’s turn. Several senatorshave expressed interest in extendingthe franchise tax to partnerships as partof their school finance plan.

Bush Taps ‘Armageddon Nominee’ To U.N. PostWASHINGTON — To fill the position

of ambassador to the United Nations,President Bush nominatedUndersecretary of State for Arms Con-trol and International Security JohnBolton, a man who said in a 1994 paneldiscussion that “if the U.N. (secretariat)building in New York lost 10 stories, itwouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

The Senate confirmation hearing onBolton is expected to be rough, consid-ering Democrats are said to be stunnedby Bush’s choice.

“This is like putting the fox in chargeof the henhouse,” said HeatherHamilton, vice president of programsfor Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS),formerly the World Federalist Associa-tion (WFA).

The WFA has called Bolton the “Ar-

mageddon nominee” based on Bolton’slong-time loyalty to former ultra-rightSen. Jesse Helms who described Boltonas ”the kind of man with whom I wouldwant to stand at Armageddon, if itshould be my lot to be on hand for what

is forecast to be the final battle betweengood and evil in this world.”

”His nomination sends the exactly thewrong message to the world about theBush administration’s willingness towork with other countries and in multi-

lateral institutions. There’s no one whohas a greater track record of offendingother countries, including our closest al-lies,” she said.

— The IPS-Inter Press Service con-tributed to this report.

U.S. Could End World Poverty By 2025, Says Economist WASHINGTON — U.S. economist

and a special adviser to the U.N. secre-tary general Jeffrey Sachs says in hisnew book, “The End of Poverty,” thatthe United States could eliminate ex-treme world poverty by 2025 by turningaround its priorities.

“Currently, more than eight millionpeople around the world die each yearbecause they are too poor to stay alive.

Yet our generation, in the U.S. andabroad, can choose to end extreme pov-erty by the year 2025,” he wrote. “Therichest and most powerful country, long theleader and inspiration in democratic ideals,is barely participating in global efforts to endpoverty and protect the environment, thusundermining its own security.”

Sachs said that Americans are pay-ing only a 30th of the “nearly $500 bil-

lion the U.S. will spend this year on themilitary,” a figure less in foreign aid thanpromised three years ago.

He said that a good place to start isby giving 0.7 percent of U.S. national in-come to foreign development goals aspromised by George Bush’s MonterreyConsensus commitment, made at the2002 International Conference on Fi-nancing for Development.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 — 3www.iconoclast-texas.com


BeyondBeyondBeyondBeyondBeyondThe MallThe MallThe MallThe MallThe Mall

Iconoclast Interview

With Protest Singer

DavidDavidDavidDavidDavidRovicsRovicsRovicsRovicsRovics

By Nathan Diebenow

MORE CAHONES THAN PBS, David Rovics performed in Waco last Saturdaynight to a crowd of 22 people at the Unititarian Universalist Church.

— Staff Photo By Nathan Diebenow

WACO — David Rovics is the musi-cal version of PBS — that is, if PBS hadmore cahones!

For over eight years, Rovics hasmade his career as a radical troubadour,subverting the U.S. governmentthrough story songs that reveal the un-told truths about the Israeli-Palestinianconflict, the effects of depleted uraniumon U.S. soldiers, conservative Chris-tians in the produce section of a Hous-ton supermarket, life “beyond the mall,”and romantic moments in hot tubs.

Anything else would be unsatisfyingto the 38-year-old from Wilton, Conn.

His show, a benefit for the WacoFriends of Peace at the Unitarian Uni-versalist Church of Waco last Saturdaynight, was no less unsatisfying. With hisacoustic guitar and mike-less vocals, heperformed like a camp councillor readyto lead his 22 “campers” out of the darkforest and into base camp.

This stop was one of many on hisspring 2005 tour through Texas. He istraveling in support of his new album“Beyond the Mall,” available to down-load for free at his website(www.davidrovics.com) along with hiseight other albums: Songs ForMahmud, Return, Living In TheseTimes, Hang A Flag In The Window,Live At Club Passim, We Just Want TheWorld, and Behind The Barricades:Best of David Rovics.

THE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST’s NathanDiebenow listened to Rovics, who wasaccompanied by his friend NathalieParavicini, after Saturday’s show as theprotest singer talked about songwritingafter the 2004 presidential election, thedifferences between rural and urbanprogressives, and the obstacles of gain-ing radio airplay in the mad, mad, mad,mad Clear Channel world.

.........ICONOCLAST: What goes through

your mind knowing that you’re thisclose to the president’s vacation homenow after the election?

ROVICS: Well, I don’t really buy thewhole red-state/blue-state thing. I thinkthe country is full of progressives fromall over the place including Texas. Verymuch including Texas. Of course,there’s conservative flag-waving, war-mongering Republicans everywhere aswell. Certainly, Texas has a fairly out-spoken. I’d say minority of warmonger-ing, pro-empire, pro-Bush people, butit also has a lot of outright progressivesas well as people who are just outrightuninformed, and if they just have infor-mation on reality that’s provided not byFox but provided by less partisansources, then often people’s politics arereally a lot more progressive than theymight appear, or even how they’d thinkof themselves. I think actually most ofthe time I’m playing for an audience —of recent war veterans from Iraq, for ex-

ample — it’s very easy to communicatewith them.

There may be certain catch words orphrases that they react negatively to,but basically, the idea that they just gotdone fighting a war for oil that theydidn’t understand or believe in and thatcivilians were the main victims of theiractions, then most of them won’t arguewith that, most of them understandthat’s the case, and most of them arereally upset about it.

ICONOCLAST: How do your songsplay well to them? I mean, how often doyou play to veterans?

ROVICS: I play to a lot of veterans be-cause so many of them are coming backand are getting involved with the anti-war movement, Iraq Veterans Againstthe War and other organizations. Andthen others are just friends of peopleinvolved with the progressive move-ment. They drag their friends along whojust got back and say, “Hey, check thisguy out.” Usually, if they have a friendwho’s already sort of progressive, thenthey may not be the most conservativeof the veterans, but I play for a lot ofveterans who are in any case very re-ceptive to what I’m saying and are re-ally happy that there are people sayingthese things that they’re thinking.

ICONOCLAST: They buy the albumsand hang out after the show with you?

ROVICS: Yeah. Tell me horror stories.ICONOCLAST: Is that where you get

your material?ROVICS: A lot of it just comes from

talking to people and just reading whatpeople write. Like in the case of the songThe Face of Victory. I wrote that beforemost folks started coming back, andthat was written from an e-mail listcalled DI special. And that is a placewhere a lot of people who were in thefield or back on break are just writingabout their experiences, and much ofthe writing is just informative stuff thatyou don’t get from even the progressivenews sources because these are peoplewho have been recently in places wherethere are no journalists, so it’s reallyjust fascinating.

ICONOCLAST: So they’re their ownalternative media? They do their ownhomework and tell their own stories?

ROVICS: They are! It’s kind of like ablog, except it’s not so much the soldiersthemselves doing the blogging. It’smore a case of the soldiers submittingstuff which is then turned into a bit of ablog by the people running the site.

ICONOCLAST: What’s the sitecalled?

ROVICS: Militaryproject.org.ICONOCLAST: Has the presidential

election changed your approach to ac-tivism? I mean, did you walk away think-ing, “Maybe I should find some issuesthat more conservatives agree with meon, so we could work on them togetherfor the common good of the country?”

ROVICS: Well, I was kind of waitingto see who was going to win. Naturally,the person in the White House tends toinfluence the things I’m writing about.Basically, from my vantage point, nei-ther of the two would have been anygood. Kerry would have been the lesserevil, and I emphasize the word evil morethan the word lesser.

Usually, when there’s a Democrat inthe White House, I think manyprogressives get kind of confused andstart thinking they have an ally in theWhite House. I’m not sure when the lasttime we had an ally in the White House

was, but I’d say in the time I’ve beenalive, all of the occupants in the WhiteHouse have been war criminals andpeople who are bent on impoverishingthe world in order to make the tiny elitethat run the country richer. And Kerrywould have been one of those peoplemost definitely.

When there’s someone like that in theWhite House, it’s kind of like a wolf insheep’s clothing, which is basically whatI think most Democratic leadership are.So in that case, you have to change yourtactic in order to reach the people whoare confused there and in order to tryand explain it to them.

ICONOCLAST: When you look atHoward Dean, you would instantly puthim in the same category?

ROVICS: I don’t know about HowardDean. I think there is a definite, signifi-cant difference between Kerry andDean. There’s a much, much vaster dif-ference between them and (Dennis)Kucinich. Kucinich is a real authenticprogressive. But it’s a big mistake to sayanything is monolithic. I think there arecertain ways that our system works thatare intrinsically bad. The way WallStreet works and the value system of

Continued On Next Page



• ROVICS ... Continued From Page Three

Wall Street — I think Wall Streetlargely runs our government.

What’s important to Wall Street —and we’re talking about the billionairesof both parties who run this country —what’s important to Wall Street is mak-ing money for their stockholders andthe corporations, and this is a value sys-tem that is literally destroying theplanet. It’s a system that says if war isgood for profits, it’s good, and if war isbad for profits, it’s bad. If environmen-tal destruction is good for profits, it’sgood, and if it’s bad for profits, then en-vironmental destruction is bad.

Unfortunately, there are some thingsthat are good for profits that are goodfor all of us but most things, if they aremaking money for big corporations,they are probably doing harm to hu-manity. And that’s been the case withenvironmental and foreign policy.

ICONOCLAST: What I was sort ofgetting at with my last question is thathave you changed your writing style toreach common ground with conserva-tives, for instance, like how Rev. JimWallis of SOJOURNERS magazine is focus-ing on poverty issues. The mainstreamis just eating it up.

ROVICS: It’s always important tophrase things in a way that reaches asmany people as possible and appeals tothe universal things. A lot of times, re-gardless of who is in the White House,there are certain catch phrases that hitpeople in a negative way. If you say weneed welfare, the people react nega-tively because the word welfare by bothDemocrats and Republicans has beenso maligned; but if you say we believethat in the richest country in the world,there’s no need to have people living inthe streets of living in poverty, thenmost people agree. It’s really how youphrase things, so I try to tell stories. Ido have a fair number of more in-your-face anathemic type songs, but mostlyI just try to tell stories that illustratewhat I’m trying to say and hopefully leadpeople to their own conclusions —which hopefully are the ones I’m tryingto lead them to. Obviously, there are dif-ferent points to make with different sto-ries. But essentially, that’s what mostpeople are doing whatever form of com-munication it is. Very little forms of com-munication are actually objective. We allhave some form of perspective, and re-gardless of whether we are writing asong or doing a radio piece, we are set-ting a scene, and that is probably goingto lead people towards some conclusionor another. And probably, we’re doingthat on purpose whether or not we’rereally obvious about it.

ICONOCLAST: Before you completea song, what does it need to satisfy you?

ROVICS: It has to have good melody.It has to have well-written lyrics that gosomewhere. Each line has to belongthere; no line should be there just inorder to lead you to the next line; craft-ing it well, and ending the listener upsomewhere different from where theystarted. Something that brings themsomewhere. If it’s a sad song, it shouldmake them cry; if it’s a happy song, itshould make them laugh. And if itdoesn’t do that, it’s not a good song.

ICONOCLAST: How long will it takefor a song about depleted uranium to hitthe top 40? Will you have to sell your soulto Marilyn Manson and have him coverthem in order for your songs to hit themainstream? Continued On Next Page

ST. PATRICK’S BATTALION is a song protest singer David Rovics wrote inspiredby a real battalion of North American Irish and other Roman Catholic soldiers whofought with the Mexican army against the United States in the Mexican-AmericanWar. Rovics performed last Saturday night in Waco. — Staff Photo By Nathan Diebenow

ROVICS: I’d love to see MarilynManson cover one of my songs. I’d behappy to have him do that. But I thinkbasically one of the major differencesbetween now and the 60s is that … someof the similarities are that the massivemajority of the population is clearlyagainst the war. Millions are pouringinto the streets and protesting periodi-cally — they represent tens of millionswho aren’t in the streets for one reasonor another. Any time you have millionsof people in the streets, they are nevera focus group. They always represent anumber of people. You cannot get mil-lions of people into the streets withoutthat being the case. And anybody sug-gesting that is not the case obviouslyhas an agenda — probably a very con-servative one. But we have this goingon, not exactly like, but there’s a lot ofparallels. There’s this antiwar majority.For many reasons, it’s not reflected inthe way people vote because the systemis quite blatantly rigged by massive cor-porations. Obviously, a certain numberof people in the population are duped byBush’s rhetoric; that’s only naturalwhen you have that much rhetoric andspend billions on creating it, and net-works like Fox are just mimicking itwithout questioning. Of course, you’regoing to have adherants to it, whetheror not they really understand it.

The difference is we have these net-works that reach so many people, andClear Channel, which owns thousandsof stations, and the indie stations of the60s virtually don’t exist anymore. So thebig hit songs that got so much airplaylike Blowing in the Wind, or so manydifferent songs that were so popular atthe time have virtually no chance of get-ting popular now.

If somebody like Dylan was startingout, or Phil Ochs, or Tom Paxton, orBuffy St. Marie, they would be — I wouldguess — probably about as ignored as Iam by the corporate media. I thinkthat’s the really big difference. Thereare so many people in so many differ-ent genres all over the place — in folk,hip-hop, country — creating great po-litical music that are being ignored.

ICONOCLAST: Where do you guysmeet?

ROVICS: I do gigs with different art-ists, and the places we meet most oftenare at big protests. Like those organizedin New York or D.C.

ICONOCLAST: Give them a shoutout!

ROVICS: Some of the great hip-hopbands — the Coup, Dead Prez, theThought Breakers, Paris, MichaelFrenti, the Cyphernaughts.

There are other fantastic acousticmusicians out there doing this kind ofstuff — Utah Phillips, Jim Paige fromSeattle. There’s more sort of rock andcountry-ish types, like Steve Earle andBruce Springsteen. Obviously, some ofthese people are really famous. Emma’sRevolution is another group.

Unless somebody like BruceSpringsteen or Steve Earle who got fa-mous early, (they aren’t going to getmuch airplay) — in the case ofSpringsteen before Clear Channeldominated the world, or like Steve Earle— he was famous for doing songs thatweren’t particularly political, went toprison, and got politicized, and cameout, and he’s still a famous musician anddoes some political stuff.

So there’s always exceptions, and this

sort of thing can happen, but basically,if you’ve come around sometime in thepast 10 years, and you’re doing politicalmaterial, you’re probably gonna be se-riously marginalized.

ICONOCLAST: Are there any pro-gressive death metal bands? Your stuffis kind of graphic in that you talk aboutamputees, etc.

ROVICS: I’m not really into deathmetal, so I don’t know what’s around asfar as the death metal crowd goes. I tendto be more into the stuff where the lyr-ics are easy to understand — hip-hop,folk, rock — the certain kind of genreswhere you don’t have to read the lyricsheet to understand what they’re say-ing.

ICONOCLAST: Good point. I wasthinking more in terms of Tenacious D.They love the “hair metal” and all that,but they do it on acoustic guitars.They’re a comic duo.

ROVICS: Well, there are these bandsthat are sort of acoustic sort of folk-punkkind of stuff like Against me and Defi-ance Ohio, and I think those bands arepicking up a pretty good following anddoing really great sort of political stuffof a more lifestyle kind of nature. Lessanalytical about big political stuff andmore “this is what it’s like to be a radi-cal in our society” kind of stuff.

ICONOCLAST: Any chance you’dwrite about a small town weekly news-paper that endorsed “the lesser of twoevils” candidate for U.S. president, akaTHE LONE STAR ICONOCLAST?

ROVICS: You know I’d just heardabout that today but since I heard aboutthat, that’s just a fantastic subject for asong, and I think that one’s coming up.

ICONOCLAST: Were you on the roadduring the elections? Like last fall?

ROVICS: Last October, I was touringon the west coast with Daniel Ellsberg,Media Benjamin, and Norman Solomonon this kind of “get out the vote” tourkind of thing, and they were all pushinghard for people to vote for Kerry. Andactually, just a few days before the elec-

tion, I just randomly happened to havea tour scheduled for Britain and Ireland.So I wasn’t around for the immediateaftermath of the election, but I was defi-nitely around for the whole fall beforeit.

ICONOCLAST: You’ve been doing thisfor what, seven years?

ROVICS: Full time for about eightyears, and before that, I did a lot of mu-sic full time but not around the country.

ICONOCLAST: So you traveled quiteextensively around the United States.Are Texas progressives any differentfrom the progressives in other states?Like a different feel or different kind ofattitude?

ROVICS: It’s not so much Texas asopposed to other states. It’s more likesort of isolated relatively conservativecommunities as opposed to big urbanareas. Like, in a place like Austin, youhave the progressives feel like they’rein liberated territory more or less, andthey can be out with their views, andthey know the people around are prob-ably going to agree with them; whereasin places like Bryan or College Station,it’s much different. So in a place likethat, the progressives tend to be a lotmore fun, and they take things forgranted a lot less. So when they cometogether for something like a concert,it’s more like a celebration becausethey’re so glad that someone is comingthrough that expresses these kinds ofviews; whereas in Austin, it’s like everyday you pick the event that you’re goingto go to — if you’re going to bother go-ing to anything. So I’d say Austin hasmore in common with San Francisco orNew York or something, whereas inBryan or College Station, you could findtowns like that anywhere in the countryin any state in the country.

ICONOCLAST: So what’s the mood ofprogressives around the country? Doyou get the sense of their energy levelsare growing since the election?

ROVICS: Well, there’s always this sort



of hardcore activist minority thatthrough good times and bad will keepon plugging away. But then there’s ev-erybody else, and I think in the case ofthe everybody else, you’re talking abouta sort of relatively quiet majority ofprogressives who either aren’t con-scious of that or just don’t get out in thestreets or organize or whatever, butthey come out at different times, so be-fore the protests on Feb 15, 2003 lead-ing up to the war or the most recentchapter of the 15-year war on Iraq thatwe’ve been waging, you saw people,perhaps naively pouring out into thestreets in their millions in this countryand all over the world, thinking that ifthey got out in the streets in largeenough numbers they could stop the

• ROVICS ... Continued From Page Four

war.So for most of

those peoplewho are more the fickle sorts of activistwho got involved because they felt thesituation was particularly desperate,there was a real sense of optimism andthat sense of optimism was largely shat-tered by the beginning of the war. Andthen there was another period wherelots of people came out because theythough Bush had to be defeated, andthey worked really hard, and after theelection, there has definitely been a realpalpable sense of discouragementamong a lot of people. But still, the samesort of activist core that basically wouldbe fighting regardless of whetherthere’s a Democrat or Republican in of- Continued On Next Page

“I’d say in the time I’ve been alive, all of the occupants in the White Househave been war criminals and people who are bent on impoverishing the worldin order to make the tiny elite that run the country richer.” — David Rovics

fice; regardless of whether there’s a wargoing on or not, overt or covert or what-ever; there’s always that core whowould still be plugging away, but formany other people, it sort of ebbs andflows. Right now, it’s in a bit of an ebb,but I think that’s bound to change be-cause there are so many pressures thatwill lead to people pouring out into thestreets, and those things are inevitable— the draft, environmental catastro-phes, the further impoverishment of themajority of the people here, and thegrowing riches of the wealthy elite, andall these kinds of forces will create op-position.

ICONOCLAST: Do you think thiselection was kind of like the election in1964, but instead of Goldwater goingdown, it was Kerry, which means thatyou’re going to see a big pot brewing,and the progressives are kind of gettingmore congealed and more organized?Do you think there’s going to be moreof a long-term effect coming out of thiselection because of who lost?

ROVICS: Maybe. I don’t know howmuch it’ll be coming out of this electionas much as coming out of the kinds ofthings that either of the candidateswould have been doing right now. Re



gardless of whether it was Bush orKerry in the White House, I think thereis going to be a military draft. Either onewould have kept troops inIraq. Maybe they wouldhave dealt with differentsituations differently, but Ithink overall they wereboth supporters of the oc-cupation of Iraq, and per-haps even Kerry more sowould have been support-ing a draft. I think that’sone of many examples ofthe sort of thing that’s go-ing to mobilize people morethan who wins the election.I think there’s a lot moreoutrage than optimism.

ICONOCLAST: WillieNelson and Neil Young usebiodiesel in their buses.What’s your preferredmode of transportation?

ROVICS: Airplanes andrental cars. I am not at allecological; the amount ofenergy I’m using to tour isoutrageous and unsustain-able. I don’t fool myself atall about that, and I admirepeople who get biodieseltour vans and do things tosave energy or not use en-ergy at all. Tour by bicycle— it’s a great idea. But Ithink that the kind ofchange we need in thiscountry and this world is systemicchange, and I think it is important to em-phasize that this change is that peoplecan set an example of how you can liveoff the grid, how you can live off solarenergy, and not burn fuel and not wasteanything. And it’s really important to setthat example, that you can grow food or-ganically, and it would be better andhealthier and productive.

All that is great, but until the gov-ernment is able to change enough thatit can change the way our economyworks and the way the money is spent,like on highways ... We need trains in-stead of highways. We need massiveinfrastructural investment into thingslike trains and solar energy and con-verting our dwellings and workplacesto sustainable energy. This kind ofmoney and this kind of impetus abso-lutely must come from the establish-ment, which means that we are goingto have to be the establishment. But Idon’t think we are going to be able toreplace the resources that the federaland state governments have with per-sonal volunteer initiatives. Those ini-tiatives are a challenge and must betaken, but I don’t think we should foolourselves into thinking that as long asthe government is spending $25 billiona year on building more highways andvirtually nothing on the railways,which are just continuing to fall apart— until we can change those kinds ofdynamics, we’re not going to be ableto change things.

There’s a decision that I’ve made,and I’m not saying it’s necessarily theright one, but I am doing more goodby doing more shows than by tryingto conserve fuel and do less shows. SoI have taken the conscious decisionthat I am being more productive byburning more jet fuel in this case, andI don’t take that decision lightly, but Ithink that if I am doing any good to

• ROVICS ... Continued From Page Five

change things systemically by doingwhat I’m doing — and I don’t knowwhether that’s the case I’m just hoping

it is — then it’s worth thejet fuel. But I am striving inmy own little way for aworld where we don’t burnjet fuel. It’s definitely con-tradictory, and I am defi-nitely conscious of it.

ICONOCLAST: Soagreed that the master’stools can burn down themaster’s house?

ROVICS: I think it is ab-solutely true that themaster’s tools can burndown the master’s house. Idon’t think it’s universallytrue of all the tools, but Ithink in the case of the com-munication and transporta-tion infrastructures thatexist, we need to use thembecause it’s all we’ve got.But for what I do, for whatyou do, we’re dealing witha world where the newspa-pers come out on paper oron computers that are de-stroying the Congo andthat’s the way it is rightnow. A lot of that infrastruc-ture was made for certainreasons, for exploitation,but they can also be usedfor good in a sense. Therails were built in order to

export and import products and tradeand profit corporations. That’s why theywere built, but they were also used byunion organizers to organize unionsaround the country. The Internet is amilitary technology, built to let the mili-tary still function after a nuclear war.But it certainly has proven to be themost useful tool for activism perhapsever.

ICONOCLAST: What’s the most im-portant thing for someone who goes toa David Rovics show to know and do af-ter the show?

ROVICS: Hopefully, that the situa-tion on this planet that we’re in, whichis one of just imminent death, is notabstract. It’s real, and we need to feelthat and understand that in a visceralenough way that we have no option ifwe’re going to survive emotionally butto dedicate our lives to trying tochange the situation. That’s what I’mtrying to impart to people in differentways.

By trying to humanize people whohave been dehumanized and by tryingto bring to life realities whetherthey’re about our foreign policy or theecological situation or whatever, andtry to bring these realities to life sothat they are real for people and notjust statistics. Try to impart some kindof understanding, like what it meansto clearcut a forest or massacre theresidents of a town in Afghanistan.We’re not talking about 115 people or50 ,000 acres; we’re talking about hu-man beings, about living, breathing,beautiful ecosystems. We’re trying tobring those things to life, so thatpeople can’t just shove them aside.

If you have people’s attention for afew minutes to sing a song to them, thenyou have the potential of hopefullybringing them to a different emotionalspace than they were in when the songstarted.

DAVID ROVICS per-formed last Saturdaynight at the UnitarianUniversalist Church ofWaco as a benefit for theWaco Friends of Peacegroup. Rovics is cur-rently on a Texas Tourpromoting his newonline album “Beyondthe Mall.”

— Staff Photo By Nathan Diebenow

Italy Wants Clarification Into Agent’s Death

U.S. Army Fabricated StoryOf Saddam’s Capture, Says Ex-Marine

Senate Republican Stalls Bush’s‘Clear Skies’ Bill — For Now

WASHINGTON — Environmentalgroups hailed a victory last Wednesdaywhen Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) votedagainst President Bush’s Clear Skiesbill in the the Senate Environment andPublic Works Committee.

Democrats, with Sen. James Jeffords(Independent-Vt.) and Sen. Chafee, saidbad faith ruled the negotiations, that thebill’s pollution control targets were toolow, and that loopholes in the bill wereirresponsible. The committee vote was9-9.

The bill — originally aimed at reduc-ing sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides andmercury pollution — would weaken es-tablished environmental protectionstipulations, said Democrats on thecommittee.

The Environmental ProtectionAgency issued new rules last Thursday

and this week to control the same pol-lutants targeted by the Bush initiative,but these rules will not change provi-sions in the 1990 Clean Air Act thatwould have been revised by Clear Skies.

A main disagreement was whetherthe bill should address global warmingand carbon dioxide emissions. The is-sue cost the Republican majority thevote of Chafee, said Sen. GeorgeVoinovich, R-Ohio.

Odds are that “Clear Skies” might notreturn to the agenda due to other billspiling up; however, Democrats said theywill continue to press for changes toClear Skies. Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) suggested that a compromisemight happen with less restrictive con-trols on carbon.

— The Washington Post contributedto this report.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Armyversion of former Iraqi PresidentSaddam Hussein’s capture was not true,said a former U.S. Marine who partici-pated in his capture.

Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Leba-nese descent said that Hussein wascaptured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, not theday after. Abou Rabeh was quoted inthe Saudi daily AL-MEDINA last Wednes-day.

Abou Rabeh said that he was in the20-man unit, which included eight ofArab descent, who searched for Husseinfor three days in the area of Dour near

Tikrit. He said that the unit foundHussein “in a modest home in a smallvillage and not in a hole as announced.”

“Fierce resistance” ensued beforeHussein’s capture which left a Marineof Sudanese origin dead, he said, add-ing that Hussein had fired at them witha gun from a second floor window.

“Later on, a military production teamfabricated the film of Saddam’s capturein a hole, which was in fact a desertedwell,” Abou Rabeh said, during an inter-view in Lebanon.

— The United Press Internationalcontributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Italy ’s primeminister Silvio Berlusconi contin-ued late last week to dispute theU.S. version of events that let to anItalian intelligence agent’s death byU.S. troops in Baghdad and urgeda complete investigation into thematter.

Berlusconi told lawmakers thatagent Nicola Calipari informed theauthorities he was heading to theairport with a freed hostage, jour-nalist Giuliana Sgrena, and thattheir car was traveling slowly andstopped immediately when a lightwas flashed at a checkpoint, beforeU.S. troops fired on the car.

The top U.S. general in Iraq hassaid, however, that he had no indi-cation that Italian officials gave ad-vance not ice o f the route o fCalipari’s car. The U.S. Army’s 3rdInfantry Division, in a statement re-leased after the shooting, said thecar was speeding and refused tostop, and a U.S. patrol tried to warna driver with hand and arm signals,by flashing white lights, and firingshots in front of the car. U.S. offi-c ia ls have a lso said Americantroops fired at the car’s engine tostop it.

Portrayed as a national hero inthe I ta l ian press for savingSgrena’s life, Calipari was given astate funeral with thousands of

people in attendance.Targeted?

Sgrena, the freed journalist whowrites for the communist daily IL

M A N I F E S T O, suggested that U.S.troops targeted her and her libera-tors because the United States op-poses Italy’s practice of negotiatingwith hostage takers.

White House spokesman ScottMcClellan called the alligations ab-surd, noting that the road to theBaghdad airport where the incidenttook place “is one of the most dan-gerous roads in Iraq,” a place wheresuicide bombings and various otherattacks have taken place.

Bush called the shooting a “ter-rible tragedy” and expressed hissolidarity to the Italian government.

A joint commission led by a U.S.brigadier general with Italian offi-cials’ participation is to release itsfindings in three to four weeks.

Berlusconi, a supporter of Presi-dent Bush and the U.S.-led cam-paign, sa id he was sure aninvest igat ion would c lar i f y theevents in the near future.

Berlusconi has been hard pressedto balance his decision to keep 3,000troops in Iraq against heavy anti-war sentiment in Italy.

— The Associated Press andReuters contributed to this report.



2005 Levi Baur Archery Benefit Set Saturday, April 9CRAWFORD — The 2005 Levi Baur

Memorial Scholarship Archery BenefitCommittee would like to announce thatthis years event will be held Saturday,April 9, in Crawford. The 3D archeryevent will be in Crawford’s beautifulTonkawa Park.

Registration for shooters will begin at9 a.m., and activities will continue in thepark until 3:30 p.m. Cost for adult ar-chers will be $10 and $5 for the youngarchers. Other park activities will in-clude a kid’s activity area, balloon re-lease, tee-shirt sales, food and muchmore. There promises to be lots of fun

for the entire family.The evening barbecue dinner and

auctions will be in the Amsler Buildingin downtown Crawford on Main Street.The doors will open at 5:30 p.m. for din-ner with the silent and audible auctionsbeginning at 7 p.m. Dinner tickets foradults will be $10 (children 5 and undereat free.)

There will also be a raffle drawing forseveral exciting raffle items again this

year at the evening event. Raffle itemsthis year include a Polaris 4-Wheeler,a spa package from Canyon Oaks, adiamond necklace from Kindler ’sJewelers and a rifle. Raffle tickets are$10 each and may be purchased fromTobacco Island in Gatesville, Keith’sAce Hardware in Hewitt, Lone StarMusic in Waco, or from any commit-tee member.

The Baur family and the Levi Baur

Scholarship Committee would like tothank everyone that made the previousthree year’s events such overwhelmingsuccesses. Without all of the businesses,churches, newspapers, radio stations,archery clubs and many friends so gen-erously giving of their donations, timeand hard work we may not have beenable to continue with this annual event.

It is the Baur family’s and friend’sbelief that through this event we cancontinue to celebrate Levi’s life bybringing friends and families togetherto share what Levi loved so much —friends, archery, hunting, and the greatoutdoors.

All proceeds go to the Levi Baur Me-morial Scholarship Fund at theCrawford School where a scholarship isgiven every year. Our hope is to con-tinue this tradition for many years tocome.

There are several sponsorship oppor-tunities and we welcome any and allaudible and silent auction donations.Volunteers are also needed and appre-ciated.

For more information, contact SandraBaur at (254) 749-9557, CharlieKasparian at (254) 486-2218, BlakeHarrell at (254) 716-1366, Jeff Slaughterat (254) 486-2227, or Tate Christensen at848-4046.

Free Tire Disposal For All McLennan CountyResidents Scheduled Saturday, March 26

WACO — Saturday, March 26, isthe date for Keep McLennan CountyBeautiful’s Spring Used Tire Am-nesty Day in McLennan County, aGreat American Cleanup event. Onthis day, all McLennan County resi-dents are invited to bring used tiresto the HOT Fairgrounds for dis-posal.

Residents of the county can dis-pose of up to six tires (up to 33” di-ameter) for free. Tires must be offrims. Additionally, they may disposeof additional tires (up to 33” diam-eter) for $2.00 each. Proof of resi-dency will be required. Tires will notbe accepted from vendors.

Tires (up to 33” diameter) left onrims will be accepted for $5.00 eachand tires (34” - 50” diameter) will beaccepted for $10 each. No tires over50” or OTR loader/grader tires willnot be accepted.

The Used Tire Amnesty Day eventwill begin at 9 a.m. and run until 1:30p.m. or until the trailer is full. Notires will be accepted before 9 a.m.or after 1:30 p.m. There will be vol-unteers available to help unloadtires.

The event site is the HOT Fair-grounds parking lot with entrance tothe site from Bosque Blvd. Thisevent is sponsored by KeepMcLennan County Beautiful, In As-sociat ion With Jer r y StevensFirestone, co-sponsored by the Cityof Waco Solid Waste Services, and

supported by Keep Waco Beautiful.For more information, please call

KMCB, City of Waco Solid Waste Ser-vices, or Keep Waco Beautiful.

INFOINFOINFOINFOINFOKMCB, 759-1550.City of Waco, 299-2612.KWB, 750-5729.



Baylor ShowTime! Slates PerformanceOn March 22 At Hill College Campus

BAYLOR SHOWTIME! will perform March 22 on the Hill College campus inHillsboro during the season finale of the Hill College Performing Arts Series.

HILLSBORO — For its final seasonconcert, The Hill College PerformingArts Series will present “BaylorShowtime!” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March22, in the Vara Martin Daniel’s Perform-ing Arts Center on the Hillsboro Cam-pus.

Performed by one of the premier en-sembles in the country will be song anddance numbers in the revue style. Fea-tured will be music from Broadway,

along with standard American music.Admission is free.A reception following the program

will be provided by the by Monday Re-view Club.

Transportation for senior citizens canbe arranged by calling (254) 582-3434.

INFO:INFO:INFO:INFO:INFO:Phillip Lowe, (254) 582-3555 (ext. 270),Shirley Erickson, (254) 582-3555 (ext. 261),www.hillcollege.edu/performingarts



CITY MEETS COUNTRY in this depiction from the upcoming Tin Building The-atre version of “Grace and Glorie.” The studio production is serving as a fundraiserfor upcoming restorations of the Conservatory and Theatre located in Clifton. Inthe picture above, wealthy city gal Glorie, played by Stacey Cockrell, seeks higherground from the dreaded chickens of county grandmother Grace, played by JanDerrickson. The play opens with a dinner theatre performance on March 19th andruns for three regular performances. For tickets, please call TBT at (254) 675-2278. — Photo by Steve Schmidt

Tennis Coach DebunksConventional Methods

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Oscar Wegneris on a mission. He wants to change theway people learn to play tennis in the U.S.The coach and author of “Play Better Ten-nis In 2 Hours” (McGraw-Hill, December2004), says the bulk of beginners in theU.S. are being programmed to adopt un-natural stances and habits that preventthem from getting as much enjoymentfrom the sport as they could be getting.

Says Wegner, “It’s actually very easy tolearn to play tennis well. The pros play atotally different game than what is taughtby conventional teaching techniques.”

Wegner is now making his special tech-niques available to the masses throughhis newly released 5-title DVD set andbook, which can be found at <http://www.tennispro101.com>.



Mom Has No Will

Averitt On Technologies, ED Subcommittees

Liberal RadioLiberal RadioLiberal RadioLiberal RadioLiberal Radio‘Air America’‘Air America’‘Air America’‘Air America’‘Air America’Expands In TExpands In TExpands In TExpands In TExpands In Texasexasexasexasexas

AUSTIN — Air America Radio, theleft-leaning network, is continuing togrow in on Texas with new ventures inAustin and Dallas.

Its talk shows will start airing Mon-day in Austin on KOKE-AM (1600) andwill debut March 21 in the Dallas areaon KXEB-AM (910). Corpus Christi al-ready has Air America running onKCCT-AM (1150).

In North Texas, however, AirAmerica’s reach is limited by low-watt-age, but officials at Border Media Part-ners, the station’s owners, said they aretrying to strengthen the signal.

Calling the expansions in Texas thehigh points for the network, Air Americaexecutives said they expect comedian-turned-commentator Al Franken to find

an audience, even in President Bush’shome state.

The former Saturday Nigh Live writerand actor provides the star power for thenetwork, which has signed up 51 stationsin less than a year. In North Texas, hisafternoon show will compete with conser-vatives Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.

“We don’t lie. Rush lies all the time. ... He’sridiculous on so many levels,” said Franken,who was in Austin for his first show.

Air America is broadcast national onXM Satellite Radio (ch. 167) and SiriusSatellite Radio (ch. 144). For more in-formation on the nearest local AirAmerica radio station in your area, visitits website at (airamericaradio.com).

— The Dallas Morning News contrib-uted to this report.

Dear SOS,My mom refuses to divide her prop-

erties or leave instructions on how shewants it to be shared between me andmy 4 brothers and sisters. Some of ushave decided we need to get a guard-ianship of her. One brother is holdingout and has tried to get her to sign quitclaim deeds and a will that he has writ-ten. She says she hasn’t signed anythingyet. We decided to ask your opinion.

— 5 kids in limboDear 5,

Adult children with an aging parentdisagree over various topics. Many ofthese families file court petitions tosettle their disputes. They often havefalse hope that guardianship will settletheir disagreements, when, in reality,the problem is interpersonal conflict,which may go back to childhood.

It’s important to be clear about guard-ianship: the parent is declared by thecourt to be incompetent and is strippedof her rights to make decisions abouther own finances and property, whereshe will live, and what medical treat-ments she will accept. A legal guardianis appointed to make these decisions forthe person. This should be the last op-tion considered.

It sounds like you might need to hirea family mediator, a care manager or anattorney who will help sort out theseissues in your family. See my website forlinks to these professionalswww.sospueblo.com I wish you peaceand harmony. SOS

Hospice Is A Good ThingDear SOS,

My father’s doctor advised us to get

him set up with the hospice program. Wealready have so much confusion, do wereally need one more thing to deal with?

— Family in MODear Family,

Many families delay calling Hospicein because they don’t understand theprogram. After they experience the hos-pice program, most of them say theywish they had contacted them sooner.

Briefly, hospice care is for those witha terminal illness. It is usually providedin the person’s home, but can also beavailable in a nursing home, hospital ora specially built hospice residence. Itprovides a team of a doctor, nurse, so-cial worker, clergy, aide, who are avail-able around the clock for support.Volunteers and family members are apart of the team, which keep the personphysically comfortable.

Hospice helps the person and the fam-ily deal with the emotional aspects of theend of life. Bereavement counseling isavailable to loved ones for a year afterthe death. Medicare pays for those pro-grams which are certified. Link to a hos-pice program in your area from mywebsite: www.dearsos.com

I encourage your to give yourself, yourfamily and your father the gift of hos-pice. SOS

RV Trip With DadDear SOS,

I think my dad is getting Alzheimer’s.But before he gets too bad off, I’m plan-ning for us to take one last trip togetheraround the country in my RV. What spe-cial precautions should I set up beforewe leave?

— The WandererDear Wander,

That sounds like a wonderful bondingexperience that you will remember forlife. Of course you will make every at-tempt to keep your father in line of sightat all times. But, knowing how that canbe so difficult, put a few things in placebefore you get on the road.

Have a packet of information aboutyour dad in the glove box or somewherehandy. include a recent picture, notesof his height, weight and other identify-ing features such as tattoos, scars, etc.Have his medicare/insurance numbers,a list of the medications he is taking, di-agnoses, advance directives.

Know where your vehicle keys are atall times, put an alarm or a bell on theRV door(s) so you will be aware if heleaves while you are resting or busy, andget him in the Alzheimer’s Safe Returnprogram. For a reasonable fee he canbe enrolled in this 24 hour, 7 day a week,national search program. See mywebsite www.dearsos.com for a link.

Have a safe trip and let me know how itwent upon your return. Bon Voyage! SOS

Linda LaPointe is a national colum-nist and an ElderLifeMatters Coach.Arrange for personal advice over thetelephone, call 719.248.8554. Send gen-eral questions to www.dearsos.com or tothis paper c/o Dear SOS PO Box 740 RyeCO 81069.

AUSTIN — Lieutenant GovernorDavid Dewhurst recently appointed StateSenator Kip Averitt (R-McGregor) to theSenate Emerging Technologies and Eco-nomic Development Subcommittee.

“Emerging technologies — such asnanotechnology, biotechnology, andbroadband communications —a re driv-ing our economy. If Texas wants to re-main economically competitive, it mustfocus on attracting and maintaining the

industries and markets associated withthese technologies,” Dewhurst said.

“I am honored to serve on the Emerg-ing Technologies and Economic Develop-ment Subcommittee,” Averitt said. “Newtechnologies are constantly changing theway Texans live and do business. I lookforward to working with ChairmanCarona and the members of the commit-tee to attract new business opportunitiesto Texas.”



Washington ReportWashington ReportBy Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison

Women Have Helped Make Texas GreatWomen’s History Month is a perfect

time to reflect on those strong women whocontributed so much to Texas, startingwith the Lone Star Republic’s early days.

Mary Austin Holley was Stephen F.Austin’s first cousin. She noted that earlyTexas women were a breed apart. Sheonce observed, “It is not uncommon forladies to mount their mustangs and huntwith their husbands, to ride long distanceson horseback to attend a ball with theirsilk dresses in their saddlebags. Hardyvigorous constitutions, free spirits andspontaneous gaiety are thus induced andcontinue a rich legacy to their childrenwho, it is to be hoped, will sufficientlyvalue the blessing not to squander it awayin the eager search for the luxury and re-finement of polite life.”

Thomas Rusk, the first senator to holdmy seat, and a close friend of fellow sena-tor Sam Houston, wrote about the womenand their contribution during the War forIndependence. His wife Mary had helpedoversee the calm evacuation ofNacogdoches by the women and childrenleft behind after the men had gone off towar.

They feared the Mexican Army andtheir Indian allies might be on the way, sothe women took their children eastwardin an exodus, remembered as the “Run-away Scrape.”

Rusk wrote, “The men of Texas de-served much credit, but more was due towomen. Armed men facing a foe could notbut be brave, but the women with theirlittle children around them without meansof defense or power to resist, faced dan-ger and death with unflinching courage.”

My great-great-grandmother, AnnaMaria Taylor, and four of her childrenmade that arduous escape through harshweather. Their children perished from ill-ness during the ordeal, but after theTaylors returned to Nacogdoches, theyraised nine more.

Since those days, Texan women havecontinued to display the grit and strengthof character those pioneers passed on totheir children.

Oveta Culp Hobby, mother of long-serv-ing former Lieutenant Governor BillHobby, came up with the plan duringWorld War II to recruit and train womento fill jobs in our military so that menwould be freed up for combat.

General George C. Marshall backed theformation of the Women’s Army AuxiliaryCorps, known popularly as the WACs. Atfirst, the list of jobs women were expectedto fill was only 54. By war’s end, that listhad expanded to 239.

Oveta did not want to head the WACs,but was prevailed upon to do her duty. Atfirst, she found herself a one-woman re-cruiting drive for the organization, trav-eling from city to city giving speechesurging women to join.

Because she became the first Americanwoman to become a commissioned officer,she had to design her own uniform. Shecarried an iron with her to press it eachnight when she made her pitch in varioustowns and cities throughout the country.She later became the first woman to re-ceive the Distinguished Service Medal,our nation’s highest non-combat award.

Her leadership continued after the war.She insisted that Armed Forces Day cel-ebrations in Houston would be open toeveryone, regardless of race.

Later, her leadership skills were tappedby President Eisenhower, who named herto head the new Department of Health,Education and Welfare as a cabinet sec-retary. When she passed away in 1995, sheleft a media empire, a loving family and alegacy built on hard work.

One of those legacies is me. After Igraduated from the University of TexasLaw School, I could not find a law firmwilling to hire me. I decided to try jour-

nalism instead, and applied for a televi-sion reporter job with KPRC TV in Hous-ton. There were no women televisionreporters in Houston at that time, but the

news director and station manager wentto Mrs. Hobby, who said it would be a greatidea to have a woman with a law degreeas one of her reporters. That was my start.I owe her a great deal.

Today Texas women serve in Congress,in the state legislature, as scientists,teachers, business leaders and artists.Even more important, many Texas womenhave embraced motherhood and havetaken on the difficult job of raising the nextgeneration. My only hope is that all of uswho are raising children will succeed in in-stilling the Texas virtues of independence,strength of character and love of our statethat we received from our parents.



— Editorial —

Republican House School Finance BillDesigned To Make The Rich Richer

CacophonyMy father and I share more than

blood.At an early age, we both knew what

we wanted to be when we grew up.He wanted to be a Lutheran pastor; I,

a writer.Parishioners would always ask me if

I wanted to be a Lutheran pastor whenI grew up.

Depending on who it was asking, ofcourse, I would either politely tell them“No, I don’t want to be a pastor,” or I’dlie and say, “Sure, but really, I’d preferbeing a rabbi because there’s a lot lessof the Bible to read and remember. Imean, did Jesus read the New Testa-ment? I don’t think so. He was smart!”

At the dinner table on Sunday after-noons, I’d usually ask my dad questionsabout his sermons — not that I didn’tunderstand them. It’s just that I didn’tremember them because I had thisproblem of sleeping through the entireservice.

As I learned to actively listen to hissermons, I discovered that my dad wasnot funny enough for me. One Sunday, Ihad had enough, and I decided to helpliven up church or at least try.

Unfortunately for me, there weremore false starts than blue ribbons.

My first plan was to use Olympic-sizescore cards to rate his sermons fromthe back pew, but my plan failed whenthe rain ruined them tucked under myarm as I walked to church.

Then, I attempted to start “The Wave”during the offering. I chickened outthough and pretended to stretch.

On a different Sunday, I noticed thatthe organist had forgotten to play theoffertory music, but just as I was goingto break into “The Hey Song” by GaryGlitter, the organist found her music.

During another offering, I attemptedto release a beach ball, but my mom “lib-erated” it from me before I could have“set it free.”

Another time during the openinghymn, I started to “head bang,” but Iaccidently fell down after my hair got inmy eyes and I bumped into an acolyte.A couple of people laughed, but it wasn’texactly the laugh I was going for.

Then, it dawned on me: I needed toform a team, a posse, if you will, to backup my silly antics. So I tried to persuademy youth group to dress up like SantaClauses one Sunday in June.

One kid immediately chimed in, “Noway, P.K.! My little sister believes inSanta Claus. If we did that, it would ruinher.”

My reply was like, “Not if we explainto her that Santa Claus is in all of uswhen we share our God-given gifts withone another.

“Well, it’s either that, or we can saythat we’re on a mission from Santa totake a preliminary census of good andbad kids. What do you think?”

After they were done throwing paperwads at me, I was glad I had hidden theBibles before class. There’s no tellingwhat they would have done — I prob-ably would have been the first P.K. to runso fast that he’d have no other choicebut to land on the moon!

There’s one thing I never did inchurch, and that was heckle my dad dur-ing his sermons. Even I knew my lim-its; however, I know other PKs whodidn’t, and they were last seen on theback of milk cartons.

The story goes a little something likethis:

In the middle of his father’s sermon,the Pastor’s Kid says, “We need a pas-tor, not a belly scratcher!HAHAHAHAHA!!!”

Shaking his head, the frustrated pas-tor pushes a red button hidden in hispulpit, and then like lightning, four guyswearing black suits and dark sun-glasses jump out of nowhere and grabthe young boy.

The Pastor’s Kid struggles with thewell-dressed men and shouts, “Hey.what are you doing? Don’t touch me!Where are you taking me? Don’t youknow who I am? What are you doingwith that carton of milk? NOOOOO!!!Mommieeeeeee!!!”

The cry ends. The sermon resumes.The congregation listens attentively,like nothing had ever happened. Andno one ever again speaks about ThePastor’s Kid, except his brothers andsisters who keep the carton of milk as areminder of their fallen sibling.

FIN

Round 1 Fails, Round 2 Begins This Weekpockets of the rich and calling it education finance reform isa joke. It is not education finance reform and will do moreharm than good.

If this passes, small businesses will be devastated as theybecome forced to either cut employees or benefits, like healthinsurance, to stay alive. Trade will be cut, as patrons find moreand more of their money raided in the store or at the pump.

According to an analysis by the Legislative Budget Board,the Republicans’ new payroll tax scheme that businesseswould pay on their employees would benefit some upper-endbusinesses, like finance, insurance, real estate, utilities, andtransportation, but others, mostly small businesses, wouldsuffer dramatically, such as services, construction, and trade.

The Legislature is headed down the wrong path for themultitude of Texans. Why? Because the term “income tax” issupposedly off the table, even though it is partially deductibleon an individual’s Federal income tax.

The Legislature should completely do away with schoolproperty taxes, leave the sales taxes alone, and implementan income tax to fix the school finance problem for good, withno caps in place on higher income.

But for that to occur, the Legislature would first have todecide who it, as a governmental body, serves. We know whichside of the financial spectrum this contorted Republican planbenefits, and it ain’t most Texans.

— Written By W. Leon Smith

It is appalling that Republicans in the Texas House havestooped to voo-doo economics to line the pockets of theircronies by designing a school finance bill that shoots

straight into the heart of poor and middle-class households.It does nothing but make the rich richer and the poor poorer,does little to benefit education, and is an insult to teachersand administrators — not to mention students.

What else can you call it?If you are a Texan and your household makes more than

$100,000 a year, you would receive a tax cut.If you are among the 1.7 million Texas households earning

less than $23,000 a year, you could see your tax burden in-crease more than five percent.

The Republican plan, which stalled amid debate on Fridaybut is to be taken up anew this week, is a mish-mash of taxtrade-offs that embellish regressive elements, such as thesales tax, , cigarette tax, and gasoline tax with increases, whilerewarding big business with substantial gains.

When it’s all said and done, the Republican chant for a “rev-enue neutral” tax bill does not solve the long-term problemswith school finance. It’s a Band-aid without any tape, a conagainst Texas.

Prudence would call for leaving all the sales and “sin” taxesalone. They have been jimmied with enough through previ-ous Legislatures that sought to avoid the real answer, an in-come tax. Moving money from the pockets of the poor to the



Bootleggers Shoot It OutIn Galveston

Rival bootleggers turned down-town Galveston into their own pri-vate shooting gallery on March 13,1931, sending innocent bystandersdiving for cover and two woundedgangsters to the hospital.

Lone Star legislators ratified the18th Amendment to the U.S. Con-stitution on the last day of Febru-ary 1918. A few weeks later, theymade Texas a bone-dry state twoyears before prohibition becamethe law of the land.

True to its maverick tradition,Galveston remained a public water-ing hole where anyone with theprice o f a dr ink could wet h iswhistle. In the early 1920s, the is-land became “a major point of en-try” for illicit liquor.

Regular as c lockwork, localsmugglers in high-powered speed-boats rendezvoused with foreignfreighters full of contraband alco-hol. Hundreds if not thousands ofcases a week were secretly slippedashore for shipment to speakeasiesthroughout Texas and as far northas Detroit.

Two cr iminal organizat ionsfought for control of the profitablepipel ine: the so -cal led “BeachGang” led by Dutch Voight and the“Downtown Gang” headed by themenacing George Musey and color-ful Johnny Jack Nounes. WhileVoight wisely maintained a low pro-file which kept him on the streets,Nounes spent almost as much timein jail as the limelight he loved somuch.

Johnny Jack’s free-spendingflamboyance earned him folk-herostatus among to lerantGalvestonians but also attractedthe attention of federal agents, whosucceeded in sending him toLeavenworth in 1924. Less than twoyears after his triumphant return,Nounes and partner Musey werecaught red-handed at Seabrookwith a boatload of booze.

“It’s in again, out again, caughtagain,” moaned Johnny Jack afterbeing slapped with a long prisonsentence. In contrast to Nounes,who was resigned to h is fate ,Musey jumped bai l and f led toCanada to avoid incarceration.

When the fugitive picked FattyOwens to run the Downtown Gangin his absence, disgruntled lieuten-ants broke ranks and formed rivalfactions. A bootlegger war ensuedcomplete with hijackings and occa-sional bloodshed.

In late Febr uar y 1931, Owenstried to bring in three trucks ofspirits from Beaumont. Despite thepresence of armed guards, gun-tot-ing thieves halted the caravan 15miles east of Houston and made offwith the entire shipment.

Two weeks later, Kye Gregory andMitch Frankovitch, former mem-bers of the Nounes-Musey mob andprime suspects in the highway rob-bery, accepted Owens’ invitation to

a bury-the-hatchet powwow. Themeeting was held in the back roomof a downtown Galveston soft drinkstand.

At the end of the short and seem-ingly friendly chat, the two guestsshook hands with Owens and his as-sociate Jimmie Crabb. Before theyreached the exit, someone suddenlyshouted, “Stick ’em up!”

Kye Gregory caught a bullet in theshoulder and a second round in theabdomen. He staggered outside andcollapsed on the sidewalk to thehorror of lunch-hour pedestrians.Meanwhi le , Mitch Frankovitchsqueezed between two parked carsand began trading shots withOwens in a nearby alley.

Two foot patrolmen reached thescene in the middle of the gun-battle and shouted at the combat-ants to cease firing. Both meeklyobeyed, as if waiting for someone totell them to stop.

Fatty Owens surrendered on thespot telling officers as he handedover his smoking pistol, “They triedto get me, but they’ll play hell do-ing it.” His sidekick Crabb made aclean getaway but turned himself inat police headquarters later that af-ternoon.

Bleeding profusely from a chestwound, Frankovitch begged Chief ofPolice Tony Messina to take him tothe hospital. The top cop rushed thebootlegger to the emergency room,where doctors determined the bul-let had ricocheted off his breast-bone narrowly missing his heart.

Frankovitch would live, but hispartner in crime was not so lucky.Gregory was dead on arrival.

At his trial for the murder of KyeGregor y, Fatty Owens took thestand to insist that he abhorred vio-lence. “I don’t even like to kill abird,” he swore with a straight face.

The defendant claimed the killingwas an accident. When the shootingstarted, he pointed his gun, closedhis eyes and squeezed the trigger.

The jury returned a verdict ofguilty, but the testimony of promi-nent character witnesses resultedin a token prison term of two years.The police chief and a city commis-sioner went to bat for Owens de-scribing the notorious outlaw as alaw-abiding pillar of the community.

Seventy- four years ago inGalveston, that may not have beenfar from the truth.

“Best of This Week in Texas His-tory” Vol. V available for $10.95 plus$3.25 postage and handling fromBartee Haile, 1912 Meadow CreekDr., Pearland, TX 77581.

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Mouse Wars…Part 3I just found another mouse. I stopped

counting weeks ago after about the fifthor sixth one. The trap had thrown this lat-est offering into the air about four or fiveinches, just smacked him clear of it alto-gether, landed him against the floorboard.Something about the scene was a bit remi-niscent of Mighty Mouse on a bad day.Yes, I know this is odd.

I didn’t know a mousetrap could do that,kill and maim without entrapment. Yetthere he lay in a little pool of mouse blood.It was SO GROSS. I felt like I should drawa chalk line around the body. And of courseI had to clean it up. Zack muttered someexpletive and sort of slunk away like Icouldn’t possibly expect him to deal withit. (And I let him get away with that. Imust be slipping).

I never had a mouse actually bleed be-fore. I’ve had them do some other prettyunexpected things when stuck in thesticky traps, especially when there aretwo on one trap. Or maybe they were do-ing that when they got stuck. Or not. Ican’t think about it. But the snap trapsusually just kill them without any bloodand gore involved. It’s bad enough that Ihave to deal with the dead body, but bodilyfluids now too? YUCK!

I felt like I should call that guy in themovies. . .. What’s he called? TheCleaner? —That guy whom they call,never mentioning his real name — whocomes in and takes care of the dead body,chops it up and carries it out in a showercurtain or baggies or whatever, and leavesthe place spic and span like nothing everhappened. —Sort of a Mafioso Mr. Clean.——Or perhaps I should call one of thoselegitimate companies that come in toclean up and make everything smell justfine after a murder has taken place. Andlet’s face it; a mouse murder had indeedtaken place. (“I had no choice, your honor.I had warned them numerous times thatthey couldn’t live here”).

But there was no one to call. When youlive in the country, you have to do almosteverything yourself unless you want towait three weeks or pay a huge servicecall. So I just donned a couple of plasticbags over one hand and did the deed my-self, just as I had disposed of the stickytraps. (The first one was the worst. Afterthat, I sort of got hardened to it. I wonderif criminals start out this way?)

It’s amazing the things we can do whenwe must. I figure after going throughchildbirth (more than once) and livingthrough motherhood, this was a piece ofcake. It was distasteful, but it wasn’t like,well, having a root canal or anything. —Must keep it all in perspective.

So how long can this go on, this mouse-murdering spree? How many more canthere possibly be? Oh, and yesterday Ifound the one that died in my closet. Iwrote about it in a previous column. Hehad snapped the trap and then escapedwith it. You KNEW that wasn’t going tohave a happy ending, didn’t you?

Well, it didn’t. My closet started to havea distinctive odor a couple of days afterwe heard the trap snap, but I could neverfind the darned mouse. How can some-thing so tiny smell so awful? I stayed inthere searching for as long as I couldstand it (which wasn’t very long). Then Idid the sensible, pragmatic thing: I ex-ited and closed the closet door. I reopenedit as little as possible over the next fewdays. I figured, hey, it couldn’t last forever,could it?

(I bet you thought I was going to say Iremoved everything from the closet untilI found the mouse. Well, that was Plan A.Plan A was made before cows startedbreaking out of fences everywhere, get-ting into rye grass and wheat fields andonto the road. There was no time for

closet cleaning, so Plan B, closing thedoor, was employed as a desperationmove).

After about a week or so, the odor ema-nating from my closet dissipated (or per-haps I became used to it, if that is possible.. . .Highly doubtful). And of course whenit finally stopped smelling, I found themouse, with trap attached. At least itwasn’t deeply imbedded in one of myboots. EWWWWWWWWWWW.

Yesterday, just when I started to thinkthe ladybug invasion was nearing an end,I was bombarded again, literally buzzedby a couple of low flying LBs. I almostdrank one from what I thought was a cleanglass of water. Twice. Now I am forced todon my reading glasses and scrutinize theglass before filling it. When I glanced to-ward the east and south windows of thekitchen, I realized the ladybug war was onagain in earnest.

I must have sucked up almost a hun-dred of the insects into my little hand vacin the kitchen alone yesterday. (And Ihaven’t even begun to deal with all thedead ones upstairs and in my studio). I’mready for this to be over now, OK? Who-ever is in charge of such things, please,can I issue a stop order?

Ladybugs have a very distinctive odorabout them. When I use the hand vac now,the aroma of something like cauliflowercooking permeates the entire room. It’squite disturbing. I may never feel quite thesame way about cauliflower again.

And it’s not just mice and ladybugs ei-ther. I found a snake in the front flowerbed,just a little garden variety. So I picked itup, admired it, and deposited it far awayfrom the house, where Zack wouldn’t mis-take it for something dangerous. Ofcourse, it was probably back here beforeI was. But this tells me that not only isspring just around the corner with its fruittree blossoms and bulbs and reawakeningperennials, but also that the snakes arebeginning to crawl. So be careful what youpick up!

I’m not squeamish around earthwormseither. And I have never seen as many asI am seeing now. — Must be all this rain.Every time I dig a hole, there are severalearthworms in my shovel (hopefully no“half soldiers”). When I was a child, oneof my parents showed me that the littlecreatures weren’t harmful, that Ishouldn’t be fearful of them. I was allowedto hold one and was told they were fasci-nating. So I believed it.

I learned that all creatures are fascinat-ing. (Whether we like them or not is an-other story). Some of these worms arehermaphrodites. Some can regenerate anew half (either the front half or the rear)when severed. I still think they are amaz-ing. I hope I never grow so old or disin-terested that the world and its inhabitantsstop being simply astonishing to me.

No wonder I was such a little tomboy.Thanks, Mom and Dad. If you hadn’traised me as you did, a little girl wholiked to play in the dirt and examineworms, I might not have turned into thekind of woman who could clean up herown murdered mouse. And where wouldI be then?



Universe Makes Push-Starting Your Car A Lot Harder

Is Grandma Unamerican?

I certainly feel a deep kinship with thesurrounding universe. Particularly af-ter reading how, like my own waistline,it is continuing to expand as it gets older.According to a recent article in TIMEmagazine, there are a number of discov-eries that answer fundamental ques-tions about the mysteries of space —beginning with a property called “darkgravity.”

It is something that parents have sus-pected for eons, and that astrophysi-cists have only now proven theexistence of: An invisible force slightlystronger than normal gravity that pullsin the opposite direction. It is this prop-erty that keeps the universe expandingin spite of the pull of planets and con-stellations.

According to physicists at PrincetonUniversity, children naturally possessthis gravitational force, which explainstheir ability to pull their parents in twodirections at once.

The other effects of “dark” gravityaren’t as straightforward. In fact, thedifference between the two types of

gravity are a little hazy; both are invis-ible, and both earn their living by pull-ing things. Here are a few examples tohelp illustrate their differences:

A baseball landing in your mitt isgravity; a baseball landing on your fore-head is “dark gravity.”

Push-starting your car by rolling itdown a hill is gravity; if the car doesn’tstart before you get to the bottom, that’s“dark gravity.”

Weight-lifting, gravity; weight-gain-ing, “dark gravity.”

Getting sick on the Tilt-a-Whirl, grav-ity; being strapped next to the persongetting sick on the Tilt-a-Whirl —

You get the idea.And the discovery of light and “dark”

doesn’t end there.Apparently, physicists have discov-

ered that matter also has a bright andnot-so-bright side.

While regular matter is easy to see,taste, touch and feel, “dark” matter isan invisible substance that, by a ratio of10 to 1, outweighs all visible particlesthat stars, planets and people are madeof.

This is why eating a three-ouncecandy bar means that you will gain —

on average — 26 pounds. It’s all of thatinvisible “dark” matter surroundingwhat we eat that’s causing America’sobesity problem, not the calories or lackof exercise. The trick is to find a way toremove the “dark” matter from our foodsources — something that is harderthan it sounds since scientists have noidea what the stuff is, what it looks like,or where it came from.

The only thing we know for sure isthat it was recently approved by theFDA.

Though there were a handful of otherrevelations, nothing compares with howthe universe will eventually collapse.Much like the elastic waistband in myswimming trunks, the universe will con-tinue to stretch until it reaches a pointof critical mass known as “The BigSnap.”

What happens after that is anyone’sguess.

As for me, I’d rather not dwell on thegravity of such matters.

Contact Hickson [email protected], or at theSiuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence,OR 97439.)

When I first heard that friends of theBush administration were going to startattacking AARP, I didn’t think it couldbe true. First of all, what could possiblybe objectionable about the “seniorslobby,” and secondly, was it really po-litically wise for anyone to attack an or-ganization of those over fifty? But as isoften the case, I was wrong: Bush sup-porters are actually going after AARP,apparently not worried about gettingyelled at by their own mothers andgrandmothers.

They aren’t saying they’re againsteveryone over fifty. They’re just againstthis organization. But what could theypossibly not like about a group that op-poses age discrimination, promotesphysical and economic health for se-niors, and projects an image of vitalityfor those over fifty? It comes down totwo magic words: “social security.”AARP is against sweeping changes insocial security, and the Administrationis for them. One White House officialhas said, “The AARP is an ossified bu-reaucracy that isn’t always responsiveto its membership.” You read that cor-rectly. Someone in the federal govern-ment actually referred to anotherorganization as “ossified” and “not al-ways responsive.” The Republicans aresaying AARP is “too conservative!”What are they going to say next: thatsome of its spokespeople talk in a folksyway and sound “too Texan?”

Get ready to hear all kinds of chargesabout AARP’s “secret agendas.” Thesepeople can make their anti-AARPcharges because they’re pros. They’repolitical mudslingers. If slingers couldsmear John McCain about his adoptedchild, if they could turn a war hero likeJohn Kerry into a near-traitor, they’recertainly not going to have qualmsabout attacking AARP. One group be-hind this is USA Next, which has re-ceived millions of dollars frompharmaceutical companies. Anothercontributor is Bob Perry, one of the keypeople behind the “Swift Boat Veter-ans” group. So, it should be interest-ing to watch these guys try to turn theimage of AARP from “Mom and applepie” to “Seniors Without Family Val-ues.”

But don’t underestimate AARP. It’sa well-oiled machine, as anyone whohas celebrated a 50th birthday knows.On the very day that you hit the big five-

oh, right after you’ve looked in the mir-ror and told yourself, “I don’t really lookfifty,” the AARP magazine arrives in themail. They don’t even give you a fewdays to kid yourself. I don’t know howthey know everybody’s birthday andeverybody’s address, but they do. Doesthat sound like an organization that’sgoing to take an attack sitting on itsIRAs?

There may be some gray hair inAARP, but there’s also a lot of gray mat-ter. They have 38 million members.That’s a lot of educated, experiencedpeople to tick off. And this isn’t a bloc ofpeople who’s shy about voting or writ-ing to their representatives in Washing-ton. Speaking of Washington, I wonderhow many people in the Bush Adminis-tration are members of AARP. Can theyall honestly say that they’ve never beentempted to take an AARP discount orread about the latest Hollywood celeb-rity to turn fifty? And now that thePresident has been telling everyonethat he reads before bed, is it really astretch to picture him in his presiden-tial p.j.’s, reading his personal copy ofthe AARP Magazine? Maybe he basessome of his diet and exercise programon things suggested by AARP. That’s alot more likely than his picking up point-ers from “The Playboy Advisor.”

So, it should be an interesting, if un-fortunate fight. It still amazes me thatthese guys have chosen AARP as anopponent. Who are they going to pick onnext? Poor people who can’t afford pre-scriptions? The little guy who wants tosue the huge corporation? Silly cartooncharacters? Oh, that’s right. They’vealready gone after all of them.

Lloyd Garver has written for manytelevision shows, ranging from“Sesame Street” to “Family Ties” to“Frasier” to “Home Improvement.” Hehas also read many books, some ofthem in hardcover. He can be reachedat [email protected]



To The Editor:Your interview with Karl W. B.

Schwarz (2/16) was fascinating andchilling. He’d be easy to dismiss as aconspiracy theorist if his assertionsweren’t so true. While I’m not yet readyto accept his view on 9-11, there is nodoubt that the attack served to advancethe Bush-Cheney agenda, The Projectfor a New American Century.

I wish, however, he’d stop referringto liberals like myself as the “far fringe”and the “wacky secular folks on the farLeft.” In fact, we are intelligent peopleof faith, doctors, accountants, teachers,wage earners and business people.While our motivations may differ fromthose of Mr. Schwarz, our current ob-jectives are very much the same. Insult-ing like-minded activists iscounter-productive. We should be work-ing together to put America back ontrack.

Daryl Altman, Lynbrook, N.Y.To The Editor:

Another embarrassment. The WorldHealth Organization proposed legisla-tion which esatblishes a ban on tobaccocompany advertising, sponsorship andpromotion as well as international stan-dards on labeling, pricing, and taxes.

Tobacco is the second leading causeof death throughout the world, killingan estimated 5 million people a year.Three hundred thousand in the UnitedStates alone. Needless to say this treatywill save an untold number of lives.

Bush in his quest to mend public re-lations with “old Europe,” it gives thelie to the posture that he puts forth, be-cause when it comes to humanitarianand environmental agreements, heseems deign to participate. This comesas no surprise because we always knewthat he was a dirt bag.

To further prove my point, of the 191nations that have agreed to this proviso,old scmucko is standing in the rain, fin-ger in his mouth, with that “who me”look all by himself protecting the to-bacco lobby by not agreeing to partici-pate. Sort of reminds one of the CleanAir Act and the Kyoto Accord.

Pretty easy to hate this throwback.Still no Osama

N.M.To The Editor:

I found what Mr. Schwarz had to sayfrightening. Although my consciencefinds it hard to accept the idea thatPresident Bush was involved in the ac-tual planning of 9/11, this administra-tion has not failed to shock me in theirpast attempts to line the pockets of theirgreedy cronies.

What disturbed me is learning thatone of those flights that left the U.S.right after 9/11 went to northern Af-ghanistan. We already knew that BinLaden family members were on one ofthose flights.

The pipeline reference had me recall-ing an article I had read in Newsday inDecember of 2001 that the Afghanistanpipeline was underway. This was rightabout the time we lost Osama binLaden in Tora Bora and at about thesame time President Bush said that hedoesn’t care about Osama bin Laden

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anymore. He had already named Iranin his axis of evil. This Newsday article,by the way, has been removed from pub-lic access because of national security.I guess they didn’t want anyone to con-nect the dots.

Claudia Borecky, Merrick, N.Y.Letter to the Editor:

We should congratulate and thank thepeople of Chile for giving us the great-est hero of the Western Hemisphereduring the latter part of the 20th cen-tury in the form of General AugustoPinochet who saved Chile in 1973 byousting marxist dictator SalvadorAllende in the most brilliant militarypreservation of a nations constitutionand freedom in our time during a periodof unprecedented communist turmoiland brutality in Chile.

Had General Pinochet not actedwhen he did to save Chile, the people ofChile today would be languishing in avast prison state and never again wouldbe heard the muse. It greatly saddensme to see news of the attacks now be-ing heaped on this great warrior andsavior of Chile, and benefactor of ourhemisphere, by Chilean officials whoapparently have no integrity, souls, ormorality.

It’s obvious that the Communists, theMarxist Left, and the one world inter-nationalists hate Pinochet not only be-cause he led one of the fewcounter-revolutions that succeeded inousting a Communist regime, but alsobecause he is a Christian patriot whostands for everything they oppose.

We and the people of Chile should re-vere and protect General Pinochet asthe great hero of our time and hemi-sphere, and consign his adversaries tothe dust bin of history where they canrevel in their dimly lit rooms and de-mented lost dreams of us as slaves intheir socialist gulags, and them step-ping on a human face forever.

We should see:www.thenewamerican.com (search:pinochet)-or www.jbs.org and sendcommunications of protest to Chil-ean leaders and media, and our ownleaders and media immediately, anddemand they protect our hemi-sphere by defending Pinochet andhis legacy NOW and forever!

Sincerely,Ed Nemechek, Landers, Calif.

To The Editor:Change state name?With all the “noise” from the Capitol

about which groups to tax next, it’s get-ting harder for many of us to get a rest-ful night’s sleep. In addition, localgovernments keep on raising taxes.School districts promote bond sales.The governor and special interests arepushing toll roads. Health care and pre-scription medication costs are “throughthe roof.” Home insurance costs aredoubled. Astronomical fuel and energycosts are still escalating. Let’s not for-get that daily living expenses are sky-rocketing.

With the ceiling on expenses nowherein sight and everything going up exceptthe force of gravity, perhaps it’s appro-priate to propose a change of our state

name from Texas to Taxes?Legislators need to work better for

Texas families and their children.Options for Financing Public Edu-

cationa. Eliminate the loopholes in the Busi-

ness Franchise Tax and/or make busi-nesses pay their fair share towardseducating Texas children.

b. Use the State Lottery; it was sup-posed to be used entirely to finance edu-cation — raise the price of one ticket to$2.00 or $3.00 and take a larger percent-age for public school funding. Also re-duce the odds of winning the lottery.This will double the net revenue previ-ously taken from the Lottery to financeschools;

c. Increase the sales tax to financepublic schools, no more than one-halfcent tax;

d. Consider a school voucher system.Parents should have an option and ashomeowners should NOT have to paydouble taxation to send their childrento private schools.

e. Set up a separate Public EducationFund via sales & service tax, a maxi-mum one-half cent charge to go towardsschool financing;

f. Apply a small School Finance tax toevery business operating in Texas —companies should give back to the com-munity, no exceptions; NOT a payrolltax.

g. Be more practical and reality-basedin developing a more specific State Pub-lic School Budget with State tax dollars,and strive to maintain the highest qual-ity of education for our children. Thisincludes providing more money to hirethe best administrators and teachers,and to research and implement the bestprograms and materials for our chil-dren. Control of the spending must re-main within each school district. Ourchildren continue to be the most pre-cious resource of the State of Texas. Inaddition, children should be evaluatedon their total educational development— not on government-dictated testevaluations;

h. Provide schools and/or districtswith in-house professional manage-ment (Comptroller’s Office) to assist indeveloping reality-based priorities andexpenditures;

i. Increase the tax on the purchase ofALL liquor and tobacco products for fi-nancing schools;

j. Raise the tax on gasoline a few centsand provide the legislation for thismoney to go to Public Education;

k. Take a small percentage of monthlycharges by rental properties and apart-ment complexes to go directly to publicschool financing;

l. Establish a Visitor Education Fundwhereby all hotels and rental car com-panies charge a service fee that goes tofinance education;

m. Establish an Airport EducationFund whereby the cost of flight ticketsincludes a service fee that goes to fi-nance education.

Using all or several of these alterna-tive methods will replace Texashomeowners from being overburdenedas the sole source of school financing,and will continue to improve the qual-ity of our children’s education. In thisway all Texans will share fairly in pro-viding tax dollars to maintain a qualityeducation for our children.

More tuition hikes, broken prom-ises

College students and their parentscan thank the governor and legislators

for the latest tuition increases at UT andseveral other campuses. Seems like thelower cost promises made by officials forderegulating tuition at higher educationinstitutions was another bogus call. Itappears that special interests in Texasare continuing their revenue-making“feeding frenzy.” Similar broken prom-ises of lower costs and/or prompt reso-lutions were made for homeownersinsurance, toll roads, medical malprac-tice lawsuits, public education, propertytaxes — just to name a few. Sort ofmakes you wonder how much morevoters are willing to take, doesn’t it?

Peter Stern, Driftwood, TexasDear Editor,

Most Americans are aware that ourhealth care system is broken. Unfortu-nately, Congress got some bad adviceearlier this week that would make itmore difficult to fix what’s wrong.

An advisory panel recommended Con-gress continue its temporary ban onnew specialty hospitals. Specialty hos-pitals focus on a few areas of care, suchas heart surgery or women’s health. Byspecializing, they are able to improvethe quality of care and lower costs. Theyalso add needed capacity, as the BabyBoomers begin retiring in a few yearsand start to need more medical care.

Because specialty hospitals can alsotake away market share from large hos-pitals and cut into their profits, the largehospitals got Congress to temporarilyban new specialty hospitals in 2003. Theban is supposed to end this June, but thelarge hospitals have been flexing theirpolitical muscles (and $2 million in con-tributions in 2004) to try to eliminate thecompetition, and have asked Congressto extend the ban.

Allowing the ban to expire in June, asCongress originally intended, would al-low specialty hospitals to once again in-ject competition and innovation into thenation’s health care system. Patientseverywhere would benefit.

Sean ParnellTo The Editor:

All possibilities supposedly “are onthe table” when considering Social Se-curity repair - except the things Bushand other ultra-conservatives don’twant on the table, like raising the as-sessed wages cap, formulating a reason-able test to determine actual need forbenefits, and so on. And yetProgressives, historically andunarguably the champion of the vastmajority of American citizenry, some-how are cast as ‘obstructionists’ if wesay, “Private accounts should not be onthe table because they don’t address,much less solve, the basic funding is-sues for Social Security.”

We have Bush, speaking of the futuremassive Social Security borrowing, inColumbus Ohio yesterday, “This is adebt to future generations of Americansand unless we do something about itwe’re not going to be able to pay for itwithout wrecking the economy,” yet atthe same time it seems not to occur tohim that the same must be said of themassive deficits generated by his un-ending string of tax cuts and rebates forthe very wealthiest Americans.When referring to foreign countrieswe’ve either invaded or are bullying toconform to U.S. standards, this admin-istration is lock-step in its assertion that‘freedom is on the march’; yet the sameadministration is absolutely united in itscrushing attempts to deny or diminishmany of those very same “freedoms” on

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Continued From Previous Pageits own citizens here at home.

A knowledgeable observer would di-agnose a little (or a lot of) schizophre-nia in behaviors so characterized bysaying one thing but doing the completeopposite.

Tim Slack, Newburgh, INTo The Editor:

In remarks made Tuesday, George W.Bush again demonstrated his astound-ing ignorance of foreign affairs by de-claring that “freedom is on the march”and pointing to anti-Syrian demonstra-tions in Beirut as proof his Middle Eastpolicies are working. Unfortunately, theonly thing these assertions proved wasthat our president really doesn’t under-stand anything about the internal poli-tics of Lebanon.

Had Bush bothered to ask any repre-sentatives of the Shia population there,he would have discovered that theseprotesters are not at all representativeof the Lebanese people and that defin-ing their presence in Martyr’s Squareas a “movement” is hardly accurate. Infact, by injecting himself into what mostLebanese consider an internal issue,Bush has effectively linked the protest-ers to the United States and thus, seri-ously jeopardized any chance they hadof achieving their goal. After all, beingassociated with the Americans isn’t toopopular in that part of the world thesedays.

The result of this administration’s ill-conceived political grandstanding?Hezbollah mobilizes ten times as manypro-Syria demonstrators in a signifi-cantly greater display of strength andallows the Lebanese prime minister(who was on his way out) to reclaim his

We Mediocre Americans

leadership position!Unfortunately this was all completely

predictable — except for someone whonever understood foreign policy in thefirst place.

Jeffrey Kyle Hensley, Plainfield, ILDear Editor,

The sponsorship scandal and the re-sultant inquiry are certainly demon-strating the total and completecontempt with which the rest of Canadais regarded by La Belle Province.Chretien and his Quebec Nationalisthenchmen are no strangers to the artof lying, as we’ve known for at leastthree decades, but to derive amuse-ment from their own blatant hypocrisyis a little too much for my stomach.

Quebec’s withdrawal from Confed-eration is rapidly becoming the onlyoption left to the majority of Canadians.If a national referendum on the subjectwere held today, Quebec would be gonetomorrow.

This divisiveness is especially frus-trating to Canadian patriots in the faceof the militant expansionist policy of theWashington war criminals currentlybeing tolerated by our neighbours to thesouth. In fact, Bush had a bagman pa-rading around Ottawa in recent monthsextolling the advantages to be gainedfrom sticking our heads into the StarWars noose. I suppose these discountedAmerican dollars still look attractive toCanadians of treasonous bent.

We have heard the phrase “divide andconquer.” We certainly have that dividedpart down to the point where the con-quered part is happening without firinga shot. Is this the end of Canada?

A. Macdonell

Have you heard about the latestcraze? Like a raging tornado it’s takenthe nation by storm, opening a wide pathfrom one corner of the country to an-other. Americans can’t seem to getenough of it.

They call it mediocrity.One could argue that mediocrity, like

beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. Inthe spheres of the arts, literature andcuisine, Europeans generally considerAmericans to be unsophisticated. Themore developed peoples of the East tendto think of us as lacking in work ethicand attention to quality.

It shouldn’t come as a shock that ourneighbors on this planet don’t often viewus with the utmost respect. (Oh, it’s notjust the French – they don’t like anyone.)

Our incessant advertisement-drivenneed for total instant gratification is abig factor, and this is not a new phenom-enon.

One of the simplest ways to gaugemediocrity in America is visit a neigh-borhood built prior to World War II.Chances are every house will be a sin-gular gem of creative design, a testa-ment to each workman’s pride. I knowthis to be fact because my grandfatherwas a Master Carpenter from Italy.

But, hey, what’s that in the middle ofthe block? It’s a teardown. Some yuppiecouple who made far too much moneyway too fast bought an irreplaceable1928 masterpiece for $400,000, demol-ished it with no respect for the efforts ofthe builders, then had a diploma millarchitect with no artistic genes designa “showplace” home for $1.75 million.

The Chicago area, for example, is lit-erally dotted with classic gem homescreated by famous designers, most no-tably Frank Lloyd Wright. Teardownshave become so commonplace thatneighborhood organizations, and evenentire communities, have fought to keepselect private residences untouchable.

Now, travel just a few blocks from theolder neighborhood to one that was builtsince WWII. Virtually all the houses on

each block will be of one design, possi-bly two. All lawns, walks, and drivewaysare of the same precise dimensions.There is no heart or soul, no art or per-sonality. Just boxes that people residein.

Then there’s popular music. Through-out the 20th Century people like Georgeand Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, CaroleKing, John Lennon and Paul McCartney,to name but a few, wrote memorablesongs. These have been played count-less times, added depth to our lives, andwill continue to be favorites long afterwe’re gone.

During the same time numerous in-credibly talented, unforgettable musicalperformers left their mark on the world:The Beatles; Johnny Cash; Patsy Cline;Elvis Presley; Frank Sinatra; et al. Aslong as there are sound recordings thesefolks will be heard.

In 2004, nine of the 10 most popularconcert draws were acts that have beenperforming more than 20 years, includ-ing Bruce Springsteen (#1), Eagles,Fleetwood Mac, and Simon & Garfunkel.The only Country act in the Top 10 wasthose sweet G.W. Bush-bashing DixieChicks.

For the past 20 or so years pop musichas been a haven for those who look goodbut can’t sing or play an instrument,manufactured into hot-selling product bygreedy record label suits and corporateradio stations. The bogus studio-onlyrock bands of the 1980s never made itinto the ‘90s. The ‘90s grunge rock bandshave vanished. Today, local bands aremore likely to play ‘60s and ‘70s music.

The only country with worse taste inmusic has to be Germany – they buyDavid Hasselhoff albums by the truck-load. It must be his name.

I wonder who, 20 years from now, isgoing to remember Madonna, BrittneySpears, Eminem, any of the boy bands,or any of the “instant” celebrities televi-sion shows such as American Idol havebeen using to make us gag?

Speaking of television, TV Guide hasto take a big hit for aiding and abettingthis mediocrity within our borders. Oncethe champion of quality television, thispioneering magazine has become essen-tially a semi-sleaze rag. The editors willspend five pages on the latest behind-the-scenes gossip at some phony “real-ity” show, but only one page on atop-notch production labored over byserious filmmakers.

The cover of TVG used to be special,reserved for stars and newspeople whoearned it: Groucho; Lucy; WalterCronkite; Johnny Carson; John Wayne.Now we get the latest hot couple fromsome reality show or, like with the Fall2004 Preview Issue, a studio-suppliedshot of Heather Locklear, even thoughby its very premise we all knew her newshow was a dud, as the magazine pre-

dicted.Reality TV lowers even the concept of

mediocrity.Movies used to be really great, too. I

love movies. It used to be there was al-ways a pretty good movie playing some-where. Now it seems like we have to waitmonths for even a marginally good movieto come out. When did it become law that60% of all Hollywood movies had to bebased on comic books, and another 35%geared to 12-year-old girls?

How did “Saving Private Ryan” losethe Oscar to “Shakespeare In Love”? Irealize that Steven Spielberg, ClintEastwood, and Ron Howard can’t makeevery film, but it would make sense forthe other filmmakers to pay attention towhat these guys are doing.

As for food, there are Americans whosimply do not know how to eat. I knowpeople who cannot eat anything withoutdrowning it in ketchup. That’s almost asdisgusting as smoking. I once knew a guywho would eat absolutely nothing for lunchbut McDonald’s hamburgers – plain.

I come from a community of more than100,000 without a decent ethnic Euro-pean restaurant. No French, German,or Greek. The sauces at the few Italianrestaurants are so tasteless you’d thinkthey went straight from the can to yourplate. However, there are plenty of Mexi-can and Chinese restaurants. Go figure.

Europeans introduced the world todelectable dishes like Veal Scaloppini,Rostbraten, Crepe Suzette, and Suvlaki.What did we give them in return?McDonald’s and KFC. Then take our hotdog, an almost criminally bland imitationof bratwurst.

Then we go to the polls. In our ownbackyards we usually get it right. Whenwe don’t it doesn’t take us long to correctthe mistake. But whenever we screw upduring those leap year votes, we reallyscrew up.

Think about some of the dooziesAmericans have voted into the WhiteHouse. Then think about the inadequateexcuse for a world statesman who nowresides there at your expense. Accord-ing to my Webster’s Seventh New Colle-giate Dictionary, 1963 Edition (which Ihave sworn by for over 40 years), one ofthe definitions of mediocrity is: a medio-cre person.

The front page of the Nov. 4, 2004issue of The Daily Mirror (London)was a photograph of George W. Bush,his right hand outstretched, fingersupward and the palm facing forward.The sub-heading, “U.S. Election Di-saster,” followed the headline whichread, “How Can 59,054,087 People BeSo Dumb?”

No, not dumb. Just mediocre.

“Europeans introduced the worldto delectable dishes like VealScaloppini, Rostbraten, CrepeSuzette, and Suvlaki. What did wegive them in return? McDonald’sand KFC.” — Jerry Tenuto



KWBU To Screen ‘Border Bandits’ March 22WACO — KWBU will present a

specia l screening of KirbyWar nock’s “Border Bandits” onTuesday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m., inroom 101 of the Castellaw Commu-nications Center on the Baylor Uni-versity Campus. Parking is availablein the Dutton Avenue Parking Facil-ity.

From the producer of the award-winning PBS documentary “Returnto Giant” comes a new look at a veryold incident. In 1915, a group ofMexican banditos ra ided theMcAllen Ranch, one of the largest inthe area. The next day a group ofTexas Rangers supposedly arrivedand eliminated the perpetrators.

However, the real story is not astidy as it has been portrayed. RolandWar nock, a 19-year- o ld cowboyworking on the Guadalupe Ranchnear present-day Edinburg, wit-nessed two of these killings when hesaw Texas Rangers from CompanyD shoot two unarmed men in theback and leave their bodies by theside of the road. The effects of thesekillings by the Rangers are beingfelt in south Texas some 80 yearslater. This single incident bringsinto play much of the roots of the

distrust between Mexicans and theRangers, as well as the continuedfr ict ion between Hispanics andAnglos in Texas.

An important and moving story,“Border Bandits” was produced,wri t ten and directed by KirbyWarnock, the grandson of RolandWarnock, and features the actualvoice of Roland Warnock as he de-scribes the events of 1915. In 1974,he sat down with his grandson anddictated the entire story to him ona reel-to -reel tape recorder forBaylor University’s oral history pro-gram. The younger Warnock keptthe tapes, and then 30 years laterdigitized them and placed them inthis documentary, with re-enactorsportraying the events described byRoland Warnock.

Unlike other documentaries that relyon voice talent to read letters or jour-nals, “Border Bandits” contains the ac-tual voice of the primary source ofinformation, Roland Warnock, lendingit an air of authenticity unmatched inmost documentaries.

There is no charge for the event, butreservations are requested. For moreinformation or to make a reservation,call (254) 710-7883.

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