The Other Shoe: Texas

Showing posts with label Texas. Show all posts

Friday, January 2, 2015

Texas 2014 a Year in Review

[caption id="attachment_3831" align="aligncenter" width="450"]

Texas[/caption]

.

Welcome back My Dear Shoevians to The Other Shoe. Yes, here I am again today. I know that this is highly unusual, and I am really pressing my ability to sit up and write… but THIS! Well, what I am about to share with you was posted on Facebook by a friend of mine. His name is Pat Kendrick and he still lives in Texas, in Sugarland. In the five years, well in March five years, of this blog I have never published anything posted on Facebook.

.

I have never been allowed the privilege on showcasing their words here on my blog at The Other Shoe. Today that changed! Today I have been given the esteem privilege of publishing for you, My Dear Shoevians, of sharing some very powerful words directly from the heat of the Great State of Texas. Finally, I would like to say “Thank you!” to Pat Kendrick for the honor of sharing his incredible words… his insight… his vision.

.

Now, without further adieu, I give you… “Texas 2014 a Year in Review” by Pat Kendrick:

.

“Texas 2014 year in review: Governor Rick Perry indicted on 2 felonies.
Attorney General Gregg Abbott sues Obama twice. Once over Obamacare, once of immigration, Ted Cruz is still a US Senator from Texas, Abbott elected Governor, Texans turns their backs with hate toward kids trying to escape tyranny and terror, no Medicaid expansion leaving 10,000,000 Texans uninsured, 49th in education, 1st in minimum wage jobs, a new Lt Gov who led the charge to fire 11,000 teachers and thi...nks ISIS is our greatest threat in Texas, Kim Kardashian got married twice or 2 more than the number of Texans who died in the fake Ebola scare, open carry let people with penis envy carry AK 47s around town and in stores, voter ID laws restricted voting though no evidence at voter fraud exists, Texas women have their constitutional right of choice virtually eliminated by draconian laws, Louis Ghomert, Joe Barton, and Blake Farenthold are actually Congressmen from Texas, and our textbooks now list Moses as a founding father and slavery not such a bad deal. A glorious year in Texas politics. I'd say 2015 has to be better but I'm scared I'll be wrong.”

.

And people wonder ‘why’ I won’t go back to Texas, even to visit. Yet, My Dear Shoevians, I cannot help but feel that I have… somehow… abandoned my fellow Texans to the butchers. That is how it feels to me… inside. I LOVED growing up in Texas… I LOVED being a Texan. That is… until… things changed.

.

Now, the whole world can clearly see that not all Texans walk in lock step. That there are many Texans that do not approve of the dire and draconian changes happening in my home state. laugh I don’t know how long it has been since I referred to Texas as my home state. I haven’t visited in nearly thirty years. It is the state of my birth. Yet, I am ashamed. If you have read Mr. Pat Kendrick’s words, above, and you were from Texas, wouldn’t you be ashamed?

.

Again I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for Pat Kendrick for the privilege of sharing his words with all of you, My Dear Shoevians.

.

I have become... suddenly.. very tired. I knew that I was pushing too hard… and I still have to copy/paste to two blogs… proof and publish.

.

Adieu!

.

Thank you!

.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Missing Texas

Welcome back My Dear Readers to The Other Shoe. I hope that everyone enjoyed my article of earlier today, ‘My Problem With President Obama’. That article was difficult for me to bring to paper. Difficult for me to share, and difficult for me to allow my passion to show. It is not that I have difficulty pointing out the shortcomings of Democrats, be they Congressmen or Senators of even Presidents. It is difficult for me to criticize a sitting President. On more than one occasion I have chastised; friends, Facebook posters, and followers of The Other Shoe for being too openly critical of a sitting President. I, often, point out that when you openly grind on a sitting President you run the risk of openly disrespecting the office of President of the United States.

.

Little can be, genuinely, gained in so doing. As well, I feel that when people (writers, bloggers, TV personalities and radio talking heads) grind too much, and too often, on a sitting President we weaken our President in the international community. We weaken his ability to hold the leaders of other nations to task. We weaken our ability to build coalitions to fight oppressors and tyrants and weaken our hand in international trade agreements. This harms our nation, as a whole, and harms our standing in the international community.

.

There, I got that off my chest. Now, on to the real reason for this late-in-the-day posting. It is 8:45PM, here in California. So, it is nearly 11PM in Texas. Therefore, most of the people that this article is meant for… will not read it until tomorrow… at the earliest. That’s fine, there really is no rush. The feeling that I will do my best to communicate, in this article, is that I miss Texas. This has been building, now, for several… months… yeah, months… I’ll stick with that… right. I may have tipped-off some of my more astute readers, earlier this week, when I wrote that I was denied attendance to my own mother’s funeral.

.

I mean, I had never heard of something like that… before. An elder brother, telling his younger sibling that they were not welcome at the funeral of their mother… or father. I mean, I have read a lot in my lifetime and never before had I read of anyone being denied access to a parents funeral. If I had to come up with a Funk and Wagnall’s human definition of the word harsh? I would submit “refusing the younger brother from attending the mother (or father’s) funeral”. That, and I just have to say, IMHO that seems lot like an abusive action… by the elder brother.

.

Me writing that, putting that into an article here @ The Other Shoe surely could have been a tip-off that I was missing home. Now, there are some of My Dear Readers that will giggle or laugh… at me referring to Texas as Home. I have been, here in one part of California or another, off and on for the past thirty-four years. That means that I have spent more, of my adult life, within the borders of California than I spent in Texas. All the same, I still do consider myself a Texan.

.

If I ever win any kind of award, and I am at the award ceremony and give an acceptance speech I will mention “being a boy from a small town in Texas…”. If ever asked in an interview, I will always tell that I was born and raised in Southeast Texas. I am proud to be a Texan. It does not matter if Texas is, outside of Texas, popular or not at the time. I am a Texan and not a ‘fair-weather Texan’. I have been missing you guys a lot, of late. I read your words, on Facebook. See your posts and sometimes recent pictures of you. It is just not the same. I have to really strain to remember; how you speak, how you walked, how you laughed and how you felt when shaking my hand… or giving me a hug. I think, most of all, I miss that.

.

Another reason, I think, that this may be coming up? Next week is my 56^th birthday. Just a stone’s throw from Sixty… and all that that entails. Yes, I am pretty sure that the upcoming 56^th birthday could have a lot to do with these feelings of… home sick. Just now, when I was running through what I was going to type next, I thought of the word home sick and (of course) the very first time I did feel home sick. It was Church camp… some place called “Peach Creek’. I think it was Peach Creek. If anyone, reading here today, went to South Park Baptist Church in Houston, and you went to Church Camp while attending SPBC? You would remember… if that was the name. If I got it wrong, don’t be shy. Either here at my blog, or on Facebook, please correct me, K? Tell me that I remembered wrong, and do me a solid and remind of the name of the Church Camp. K?

.

Anyway, that was the very first time in my life that I ever felt home sick, was the first year I went away for Church Camp. So, I am pretty sure… that is what I am feeling, now. I know that it is not just the birthday. It is also the growing pain, in spite of the increased pain medications. It is the swollen lump at the base of my spine… on the left side. The increased white cell count, for the past six months. Yes, it is all of those things… combined. So, I just wanted to say… to all of you… in Pearland, and Houston.

.

“I miss you.”

.

As always I am deeply honored that you come here and read my work.

.

Thank you!

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Texas is Turning Purple? Are you Seeing This?

Every single month, two things happen, in this changing nation of ours. Factoid one; 237,540 Americans (Baby-Boomers) turn sixty each and every month.[1] Factoid two; every single (same) month, in America, 50,000 Latinos turn voting age (18). [2] These are facts! This is a shifting demographic that does not favor one party of our ‘two party’ system. It is a known and historic fact that; lower income individuals, African Americans (90+% voted Democrat in 2012 elections), the elderly, the poor and Latinos (78% in the last Presidential election) tend to vote Democrat.

.

Thanks, in so small part, to; Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Karl Rove the Republican party is been plagued with hyper-partisanship for the last ten years. This has resulted in; intransigence in the Congress (more so in our House of Representatives) and a Senate crippled by the over sue of the filibuster .A once rarely used parliamentary procedure, now turned Standard Operating Procedure by the hyper-partisan members of said body. Between 1917 and 1975 this device was used ‘rarely” and only took 2/3^rd of the Senate to override. Today it takes 3/5^th to override and, well as you can see by the graph below, this filibuster is being used more in one month then it was used in ten years before.

.

[caption id="attachment_1051" align="aligncenter" width="606"]

Filibuster trend[/caption]

(Historic Graph of Senate Filibuster 1919-2010)

.

Now, let’s add! Number of Americans turning senior each month = 237,000 roughly (mostly Anglo-Americans) + 50,000 Latinos turning voting age each month + a House of Representatives parked in intransigence by a (relatively) small number of Republicans in gerrymandered districts + a Senate chocked with (meaningless) filibusters = a slow and painful death to the party of the far Right. The culprit behind the intransigent House of Representatives = hyper-partisanship. The 112^th Congress passed (only) 219 bills into laws. [F.Y.I. that is the ONLY job they have and laws = order in a universe that needs them] By contrast the last two Democratic controlled Congress passed 383 and 460![3] = Intransigence in Congress.

.

Now, to bring this puppy home. Texas has seen the largest growth in immigrant population second only to California.[4] As well, in Texas the largest shft in population is from rural to urban.[5] Americans that live in cities (major metropolitan areas) tend to; favor stricter gun laws, and vote Democratic. Texas is experiencing a hat-trick of changes. These three factors will not only impact Texas politics, from the Governorship to the State House, they will shift Texas from the deeply Conservative ‘Red’ of today. To a deeply purple, then Blue like it was in my youth. This is not opinion, this is far from conjecture, my friends it is in the cards it is inevitable.

.

This will, likely, not manifest by the 2014 off-year elections. However, it is my projection… my assertion, that by the Presidential Elections of 2016? Texas’ 34 electoral college votes will go to the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.

.

THAT outcome will set this country up for the longest single stretch of One Party controlling the White House since… F.D.R.! With Texas a ‘Blue’ state, the balance of power in the House of Representatives will shift, without a doubt, back to a Democratically controlled House. Texas’ move, to purple then Blue, will make a huge and unmistakable change in the governance of our nation. Wrapping up here, I have one more thing to say. “You can ‘Thank’ Governor Rick Perry for a lot of this shift. For six years he has been giving away $14 Billion dollars in tax rebates to companies who move (themselves and their employees) to Texas. Fourteen billion dollars buys a lot of Democrats from; California, and New York.

.

So, like the title of the article says, it is my firm assertion and opinion “Texas will turn purple (2014) then Blue (2016) and, at this point, there is nothing anyone can do.

.

Thank you for your time, thank you for the honor of having you read my work. And, finally, “Thank YOU!” For sharing and Liking my work. I am trying to move, before I am thrown out, by the new owners of my building. If you can… if you would please? Take a moment and click the box below… and help me move… maybe back home?