Showing posts sorted by relevance for query texan of year. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query texan of year. Sort by date Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Annise Parker is TPA's "Texan of the Year"

With the election of Annise Parker as mayor of Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States signaled that they pay more attention to qualifications than to sexual orientation.  This news reverberated around the globe and brought positive attention to the city of Houston and the state of Texas. National Democratic groups took note of a more progressive Houston than they assumed, and the talk and speculation turned to the possibilities of Texas turning blue sooner rather than later.

The Parker win was no accident. She put together a talented campaign team that ran on the strength of the grassroots rather than City Hall insiders. Key Houston-area progressive bloggers aligned themselves with Parker and were embraced by the campaign. Blogs became an effective messaging strategy, emphasizing Parker’s qualifications and her opponent’s weaknesses.

In the runoff, several third parties -- including one longtime right-wing operative who endorsed Parker's opponent -- launched a series of homophobic attacks against her, but they failed to do her any serious damage because voters recognized her distinguished service as a member of Council and City Controller and valued her experience and financial acumen.

Voters knew who she was and what she was about because she had always been open and honest about it, and that was more important than anything some agitator could say.

For her historic victory, for making the rest of the world re-evaluate its opinion of Texas, and for running a truly modern grassroots campaign, the Texas Progressive Alliance is proud to name Houston's Mayor-Elect Annise Parker its Texan of the Year for 2009.

“Gold Star Texans” for 2009

Ramey Ko: Ko is an attorney and activist in Austin. He should be best known for his work in Asian Americans for Obama, but Republican stupidity assured us he will be best known as "the guy who held his cool while on the receiving end of a massive dose of both ignorance and racism from Betty Brown." With extreme professionalism, he tried to help Brown understand why it would behoove her that voting rights for Asian Texans (and all Texans) not fall prey to bureaucratic errors creating name mismatches. Brown's ignorance/racism and Ko's cool reasonableness drew worldwide media attention. Watch the video of their exchange: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9hdVUzMeDw

Calvin Tillman: Tillman is mayor of a tiny town at the epicenter of the Barnett Shale. Several industry giants seized DISH land and installed a several huge compressor stations and processing plants right next to neighborhoods. They built a crisscross of pipelines all through the town and on private property. He has taken a hard line with industry, crafting a strategy to get the most bang for his press releases.

Tillman and the DISH City Council spent 10% of their yearly budget for a private ambient air study. This is the first such study where the results were made public so that all citizens in the Barnett Shale area might benefit. The levels of toxins were amazingly high, and many DISH residents are seriously ill, but they are poor and do not have health insurance. Tillman worked with TDSHS and finally got them to agree to test DISH residents. This is the first time a state agency has tested residents for drilling toxins. Tillman travels to other areas and speaks about these issues. He has offered to speak and assist others and refuses any compensation for travel or time.

Tillman is largely responsible for TCEQ's revised policy in response to Barnett Shale air emissions. He is also a blogger.

State Rep. Elliott Naishtat and his Capitol staff: While he may not be a native Texan, the work that Naishtat has done for the state of Texas earns him a spot on the Texans of the Year List for 2009. Even with voter ID legislation putting a choke-hold on progress, Naishtat and his Capitol staff worked diligently to pass more legislation than any other member of the House during the 81st session.  The Representative from Queens, who just completed his 10th session, has consistently proven himself to be an advocate for the sick and elderly, passing legislation that will create the Legislative Committee on Aging and ensuring Texas receives $15.2 million in Violence Against Women Act grants.  We would be remiss in acknowledging Elliott Naishtat -- as he is always quick to remind people -- without also recognizing his longtime staffers (Dorothy Browne, Nancy Walker and Judy Dale) who work tirelessly behind the scenes to help make Texas a better, safer place to live.

Texas Watchdog: Texas Watchdog (http://www.texaswatchdog.org/) had a role in breaking stories in the just-completed Houston city elections. Though their work can at times be controversial, we welcome another online news organization to the Texas media landscape with our nomination of the group.

Hank Gilbert: For his continuing work to defeat infrastructure privatization schemes and working with Democrats and more than a few Republicans, Gilbert helped put a stop to CDA's this past session and handed Governor Perry and Commissioner Todd Staples a rare defeat.
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Tuesday, January 01, 2013

TPA's Texans of the Year are the Tar Sands Blockaders

The Texas Progressive Alliance, a consortium of Lone Star-based liberal weblogs, has selected the protesters of the Tar Sands Blockade as Texans of the Year for 2012.

The award has been given annually to the person, or persons or organization, who had the most significance influence -- for good or ill -- on the advancement of progressive interests and causes over the past twelve months.

"As with previous winners (like Fort Worth city council member Joel Burns in 2010, the Harris County Democratic Party's coordinated campaign in 2008, and Carolyn Boyle of Texas Parent PAC in 2006), the Tar Sands Blockaders represent what progressive Texans strive for: correcting injustices through direct action. Sometimes that takes place at the ballot box, sometimes in the courtroom, and once in a while it happens in the streets. In 2012, it happened in a handful of pine trees in East Texas," said Vince Leibowitz, president of the TPA.

The Tar Sands Blockade began when TransCanada, the company constructing the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, began seizing property from East Texans via eminent domain to connect the pipeline, which will transport tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur. Despite the fact that the pipeline hasn't yet been approved by the US Department of State,TransCanada and other operators have been busily cutting down swaths of forest, appropriating the land along the route as necessary, and when challenged by the small group of people protesting, responded with threatening measures and occasionally brute force.

When petitioning, lobbying, and public hearings failed to slow the construction of the pipeline, concerned citizens took to non-violent protests, risking arrest in order to demonstrate the will and demands of Texans concerned about the environment, about the nation's continuing dependence on dirty fuels, and the collaboration of government officials with the corporate interests. A group of protestors climbed into a stand constructed in a grove of pine trees and halted construction for weeks.

The movement began in June of 2012 with the formation of the Tar Sands Blockade, and the first lawsuit was filed in July.

As construction began in August, protestors began putting themselves on the line. Seven protestors were arrested in Livingston, Texas just before the Labor Day holiday. Even as a judge allowed TransCanada to seize a swath of farmland in Paris, Texas, more protestors chained themselves to construction equipment in rural Hopkins County.

The New York Times and the Washington Post picked up the story in October.

Along with the property owner, actress and activist Daryl Hannah was arrested as the two women physically blocked a piece of heavy equipment and its operator from clearing land for the pipeline. Even as the number of arrests climbed past thirty, the protests grew. A few days before the November election, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested at the construction site in Winnsboro. In Cherokee County, sheriff's deputies pepper-sprayed protesters. All of this occurred while the legal battle went back and forth -- in December, a judge granted, then vacated, his temporary restraining order on pipeline construction.

And the efforts to stop the pipeline continue today, even as its construction proceeds apace. On November 29, Bob Lindsey and prominent environmental activist Diane Wilson were arrested by Harris County sheriff's deputies outside Valero's refinery in the Manchester neighborhood of Houston, where the pipeline will terminate. They chained themselves to tanker trucks outside the gates, were promptly taken into custody, and continue a hunger strike to this day that adds the humiliating and disgusting conditions of Harris County's jail to the list of outrages.

With training and mobilization of additional protests and protestors scheduled for early January, 2013, there will be more to report on this action.

The Texas Progressive Alliance salutes those who have sacrificed so much of themselves to underscore the seriousness of America's fossil fuel addiction, and how the system of corporate and political corruption has come to manifest itself in the controversy surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline.

Runners-up for this year's Texan of the Year included the following...

-- The emerging scandal of the Texas cancer research organization, CPRIT;

-- The spectacular failure of Governor Rick Perry's presidential campaign;

-- Attorney General Greg Abbott's woeful losing record in court in his many lawsuits related to the federal government, including redistricting, voter ID, Obamacare, etc.;

-- Senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, who defied conventional wisdom and was re-elected to the Texas Senate despite the best efforts of Republicans to deny her;

-- The expansion of the Texas Congressional delegation to 36 as a result of the 2010 census and apportionment of extra seats based on population growth in the Lone Star State. New Texans in Washington DC include former Democratic state representatives Pete Gallego and Marc Veazey, but also -- and unfortunately -- ultraconservatives Randy Weber and Steve Stockman.
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Monday, January 04, 2021

The Weekly Wrangle from Far Left Texas


You don’t expect the top executives in the state attorney general’s office to turn on their boss, telling the agency and law enforcement that Ken Paxton has been doing favors for a political donor that have crossed the line into bribery and abuse of office.  But it happened in 2020.

You wouldn’t expect the most popular politician in the state’s majority party to get in trouble with members of his own party’s self-styled liberty wing.  But Greg Abbott is in fact out of tune with that bunch, including the Texas GOP’s chairman.  And 2020 brought some non-political news with it too, finally bringing some light to Texans who, for reasons of technology and money, don’t have access to the high-speed internet they need to go to school, to work and even to the doctor during a pandemic.

Read more from the TexTrib's Ross Ramsey at the link above about the things he -- and the rest of us sane Texans -- did not anticipate in 2020, not including the coronavirus (generallly).  Or look forward to the convening of the 87th Legislative Session ... and secession, among the many other lunatic-fringe bills to come.

Texas stayed red in 2020. It didn’t lose any Republican Congress members, in spite of a huge and costly push by Democrats.  And in a critical year, Republicans held on to a majority in their state legislature, ensuring control over redistricting in 2021.

So what the heck has gotten into the Texas GOP?  In the span of one week, the attorney general filed a seditious lawsuit with the Supreme Court and state GOP leaders are announcing they think it’s time Texas secedes from the nation.

[...]

And Paxton isn’t the only Texan willing to sink to new political lows.  Recently, Republican state Rep. Kyle Biedermann announced that he will introduce legislation to allow Texas to secede from the nation.  His reason? “The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans.”

There is no chance that Texas will secede from the United States.  Just as with Paxton’s Supreme Court ploy, the law is not on Texas’ side.  Secession is simply not legal, and Biedermann should know that.

But also like Paxton, Biedermann’s real goal may be more personal.  Perhaps he is looking to raise his profile with a new speaker of the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives.  Moreover, earlier this year he resigned from the Texas Freedom Caucus, citing backroom deals and a lack of transparency surrounding who would become the next speaker of the Texas House.  By introducing legislation with such fanfare, he further shores up his conservative credentials, which could help him secure more influence in the state Capitol.  Then again, he may just be trying to bury all of the Google search results of him dressed as “gay Hitler.”


Reform Austin looks ahead to education-related bills in the Legislature.  The Statesman will run down its ten legislative points of focus with a series starting today on the Confederacy.  And Jasper Scherer at the HouChron writes about the contentious issue of local control that the Lege and muni governments will be grappling with.


Since I mentioned Ted Cruz and Louie Gohmert in the Saturday edition, I'd like to skip them for now and wait for what will surely be the midweek episode of "Lifestyles of the Ignorant and Seditious".

No?  Okay then.


Enough.  Please.  And no Greg Abbott.

*Sweet Baby Jeebus on a Xmas tree crutch*


Captain Obvious Kuffner observes that the COVID vaccine rollout is pretty bumpy so far.  The SAEN op-ed board pointedly advised the governor to slow his roll; the city of Austin isn't a war zone, and Texas is not a police state.

Could we please talk about some of the other TXGOP lowlifes now?


Here comes a bunch of social and criminal justice updates:

The Root has the story of the 30-year-old Black woman, a Fort Sam Houston drill sergeant, found dead of multiple gunshot wounds on New Year's Day.  Grits for Breakfast posts about the stunning allegations of hazing at the Austin police academy.  Liberation News details the state of Texas prisons, where some of the worst negligence associated with COVID-19 is occurring.  Living Blue in Texas wants to know if slaves are still buried under the Parker County courthouse.  And Reese Oxner at NPR wonders why there are so many places in the Lone Star State with the word "Negro" in their names, despite there being a law against that.


And a few environment pieces.

Inside Climate News has a map of the Eagle Ford shale graphing citizens' complaints about their pollution woes.  Oilprice.com posts the industry's POV on why nobody can solve Texas' flaring crisis (it's illuminating, pun intended.)  And James Osborne for the Chron asks if the state could become an electric vehicle hub.


And to end today ... a few of the news items on the lighter side.

The NYT profiles The 830 Times; a 16-page, ad-supported weekly tabloid launched in Del Rio in November by a PR veteran after the city's last paper shut down.  And for you fans of old-school blogging, Vagabond Scholar presents the Jon Swift Roundup for 2020.

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Friday, December 29, 2017

Brains and Eggs' Texan of the Year is ...

Harvey, naturally.


Within a mile from my house -- which stayed high and dry -- people were being rescued from flooded cars on I-610 by raft and by helicopter.


Harvey by the numbers (as of Sept. 1, four months ago):

More than 20 trillion gallons: That's the total amount of rain that fell across Texas and Louisiana, a staggering deluge that represents enough water to supply New York City's needs for over five decades.


51.88 inches: The amount of rain recorded at Cedar Bayou on the outskirts of Houston in just under five days, marking a new record for the heaviest rainfall for a storm in the continental U.S., according to the National Weather Service.

$125 billion: (Texas Gov.) Greg Abbott said his state will need federal relief money "far in excess" of that total. Moody’s Analytics has estimated $97 billion in destruction alone and some $108 billion in total damages, counting lost output.  More recent estimates put the tally close to $200 billion.

There are ongoing quarrels about the relief funds raised and how, and if, they are being spent.  

Ninety people in the US died as a result of Harvey.  Over 185,000 homes were damaged, and more than 364,000 people filed for FEMA relief.  A number well in excess of 42,000 went to shelters.  Ten thousand were rescued just by federal forces, among them 24,000 National Guardsmen.  At least 300,000 lost power for some period of time, and there were some 120,000 people in Beaumont who had to go without clean water for several days, as the public water facility there flooded.

Ten petrochemical refineries in the region were shut down for days, accounting for 3 million daily barrels -- nearly 17% -- of the nation's refining capacity.  The most infamous was the Arkema plant in Crosby, near Baytown, which had volatile chemicals that exploded and burned when the plant lost power due to flooding.  The facility had no contingency plan for an emergency of this nature due to relaxed enforcement of environmental regulations by Trump's EPA.

My wife and I were not personally affected by Harvey's wrath.  We were among the lucky ones.  My mother was forced to evacuate, twice, the second time by jet ski, and finally made it to Houston several days after the worst of Harvey moved east to torment others.  My childhood home, her home of 57 years, was inundated by 21 inches of water.  She lost everything: home, auto, clothing, valuables, keepsakes and mementos.  She is now safely ensconced in one of the finest assisted-living facilities in the city, the Village of River Oaks, but not without having endured the physical and emotional stress of so much upheaval and loss.  On Christmas Day my wife drove her around to see the Mecom Fountain and Hermann Park and other parts of town between where she is and where we are.  She remarked, "I finally feel like a Houstonian."

As for those who were less fortunate, it will be years -- decades perhaps -- for the Texas Gulf Coast, from Rockport to Orange, to recover from this year's 500-year flood event (Houston's third in three years).  Then again, Harvey is now being called a 1000-year event. 

What about next year's?  Or the year after?

I certainly hope I don't have to award any more TOYs to environmental catastrophes.
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Thursday, December 01, 2005

Lefty blogs select Republican as Texan of the Year

So we had this contest, if you recall...

And the winner is a Republican.

And not Tom DeLay, or Tom Craddick, or Governor MoFo or either of the two idiots in the US Senate.

We passed over Texans who made big news in a good way, such as Ronnie Earle and Bill White. We even skipped the Kinkster (my humble O is that he hasn't made any news yet).

Rep. Carter Casteel of New Braunfels is the recipient of the first annual Texan of the Year.

Now to be clear, Casteel was about my seventh out of a list of nine. I actually never heard the name until we ran this contest. And you may be saying the same thing to yourself at this moment. So by way of introduction, here's a bit from the press release:

Casteel was selected, in part, for her outstanding courage and hard work during the legislative session to support public education. Representative Casteel, a Republican, was overwhelmingly selected by a group of ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ bloggers in Texas for her ability to break ranks with Republican leadership that was widely seen to ignore the pressing issue of school finance. “We believe, as a group, that Representative Casteel embodies the spirit of statesmanship and reminds all of us what a true leader does to stand up for Texas. We’re pleased and encouraged by her ability to work with leadership from both sides of the aisle for the common good,” says Charlie from Pinkdome.com.


Rep. Casteel answered a few questions posed by us, also:

========================================

Do you expect a challenger in the primary (from either party)?

I always run a campaign like I’ve got a challenger. I’ve not heard of one so far.

What do you think of your party's attempts at targeting those that voted for the Hochberg amendment?

I don’t think they are being targeted by the leadership.

What do you think of the '65% rule'?

That’s fine. That’s an admirable goal. Depending on how you count it. But here’s the question: what is the classroom? Are you talking about the teacher, the aide, the nurse, the librarian, the counselor? You have to include some of the support for the teacher so the kid is in the classroom in the first place.

How does one balance voting one's district, one's party, and one's personal feelings when those three points are not all in line on a single issue?

I’ve got a brain and a background so I know that’s important to use. I’m also in a district I’ve lived in for thirty-something years. I have a fair understanding of my district, but it is critical that I communicate with my district. It is a struggle because you are going to vote your district and your conscience and every two years you have to answer to them. I’m comfortable with my party platform.

What concerns me is how public education became a liberal issue! That’s a conservative value.

I balance all those things and make my decision. It can offend people, but I can stand by my decisions. Don’t forget, I listen to the debate.

What do you think of the recent (Texas) Supreme Court ruling (on the funding of Texas public education)?

I think adequacy is still on the table and will come up in the next special session.

What would you like to see the Lege do with school finance reform?

Competitive teacher pay and health care benefits. I don’t think it’s fair to ask our teachers to help shape the future of Texas and not compensate them in a fair way.

What do you think will actually happen with school finance reform?

I think everything is on the table. I’ve met with John Sharp and I believe we are all eager to see solutions that are fair from district to district. I think there is a growth and interest among the people of Texas that are paying attention and I think that is a good thing. People are concerned
about our lack of progress and stepping up to the plate to get in front of the right people.

What do you think about educators lobbying the Legislature?

How in the world can they communicate with the legislature without coming up there and talk to (us). If you want to call it lobbying, fine. But people go on their own time and write letters. People have made the same complaints against everybody that comes up to the legislature.

That being said, I’d rather see my tax dollars being used to educate children. If that’s not happening, then I want my tax dollars to communicate with the legislature on behalf of what’s not happening. I don’t know what the rule is, but we’ll see if a rule is going to be proposed. How is it being done? Can we invite the education community to the legislature in a different way? They’ve been shut out so maybe a lobbyist is the only way to get in the door.

============================

Jack over at The People's Republic of Seabrook appears to have weighed in first with the news, followed closely by the Pink Lady.

Thanks for sponsoring the contest goes to PinkDome.

Update (today): An excerpt from Eye on Williamson County's post:

Her decision to stand up to Speaker Craddick, wing-nut money changer Dr. James Leininger, and the many Republican voucher sheep - in order to save what's left of our public schools so there is still a chance they can become what they should be - was an extraordinary act of courage, dignity, justice and just plain doing the right thing.


And from Hope at The Appalachia Alumni Association:

Perhaps this year's Texan of the Year Award should be renamed the Bill Ratliff Memorial Award For Not Being A Slave To Power Politics.


Update #2 (also today): Kuffner notes Casteel's comment...

What concerns me is how public education became a liberal issue! That's a conservative value.


And responds:

To me, public education isn't a conservative value any more than it's a liberal value. It is, or at least I hope it is, a universal value. It's a recognition by society that everyone benefits when knowledge and learning are accessible to all. We can argue about how best to implement that, and frankly I think we're best off when we have many perspectives in that argument, but we all need to agree that we have to implement it somehow before that argument can be a productive one. With people like Rep. Casteel in Austin, I feel like that's possible.


And By the Bayou points out that, unlike the other nominees, Casteel had significant impact for better and for worse:

Representative Casteel certainly deserves credit for her work on education. However, she was part of something else that had a big impact on Texas this year, and it wasn't something good: she was a co-author of HJR 6, which put the now-passed anti-marriage amendment on the ballot in November.

On the other hand, though, she also voted against legislation that would have banned gay people from being foster parents. That was a good vote, and courageous for a Republican. ...

While many of the other final nominees had an impact on Texas in one area or another, Ms. Casteel managed to be influential in two areas. First, she courageously broke with her party's leadership to help protect public education in Texas. She has demonstrated bipartisanship in an increasingly partisan legislature, and that's to be commended.

But second, she not-so-courageously helped write discrimination into the state constitution. The impact of that one will be felt longer, and while it qualifies her as a person of importance this year, it's nothing to be proud of.
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Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Brainiacs of 2016 on the way

This blog will award what was called 'Texan of the Year' as a TPA collaboration in years past, but since that doesn't happen any longer we'll change the name to "Brainiacs of 2016" and publish the winner(s) sometime before Sunday, the beginning of a fresh new year for Democrats to dread and the end of a true annus horribilis.

I'll go a little farther than another tired critique of Worst Texans (oddly enough, they're all Republicans), avoid a back-patting listicle of Best Stories, and kick up the acidity a notch from Daily Jackass honorees Chris Hooks, Misandry Angie, Jef Rouner, John Cobarruvias, Tessa Stuart and Brent Budowsky, Kris Banks and Allen Brain, and Barack Hussein Obama.  Oh, and everybody who said that a vote for Jill Stein was a vote for Trump.  Especially Matthew Rozsa and Dave Wasserman.

An early dishonorable mention goes to local Shrillbot Kim Frederick, still spewing venom all over her social media at Bernie Sanders and his supporters seven weeks after the Hillocaust.  If you want to understand why the Democrats are going to keep on losing, just take a look at her bilious slurs against progressive Democrats (and everybody who agrees with her).

While I finish up the roster, here's a little scattershooting a couple of trending topics.

-- Those crazy kids at Rice have cooked up a voting machine that may be hack-proof.

The drumbeat of election rigging and foreign hacking of voting machines have energized ongoing efforts to develop a new model of digital election equipment designed to produce instantly verifiable results and dual records for security.

Election experts say this emerging system, one of three publicly funded voting machine projects across the country, shows potential to help restore confidence in the country's election infrastructure, most of which hasn't been updated in more than a decade.

[...]

A prototype of the system, dubbed STAR Vote, sits in an engineering lab at Rice University, and bidding is open for manufacturers who want to produce it wholesale. Similar efforts to innovate voting systems are in the works in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

"County clerks in these jurisdictions are the rock stars of running elections," said Joe Kiniry, CEO of Free & Fair, an election systems supplier currently bidding on contracts to manufacture the designs of both Travis and Los Angeles counties. "If they have success in what they do, it will have, in my opinion, a massive impact on the whole U.S."

I saw no mention of Stan Stanart in this article.

Primarily, the team aimed for a digital system with easily verifiable results. So they devised a machine that records an electronic vote, then prints a copy of the paper ballot, which the voter examines then puts in a ballot box. If there are concerns about the accuracy of electronically tabulated results, they can be compared with a sampling of the paper ballots.

"It has a belt and suspender approach to verifiability and security," said Philip Stark, associate dean of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, who collaborated on the design.

STAR Vote runs automatic audits, comparing a statistical sample of the paper ballots with the digital records to verify results. "The savings are just enormous over doing a recount," Stark said.

While other systems allow for comparison of precinct-level data, STAR Vote can compare paper ballots with individual voters' digital ballots, which are encrypted and posted online. Officials could take a small sample of printed ballots and compare them with digital results to conclude with high confidence that election results were correct.

I suppose my friend Brad Friedman will stick to the Luddite method he's championed for so long, and I'd like to observe some field test, logic-and-accuracy run-throughs before I can be convinced, but Wallach, et.al. have a large reservoir of trust established in this corner and I'd like to see what they have designed.

-- As someone who spent some time as a grief counselor with the Houston-based death conglomerate SCI, this has lots of appeal to me (and none for them).

Dennis White knew he was going to die soon, and he had a plan. The 63-year old Massachusetts man had a disease called progressive primary aphasia — a condition that slowly robbed him of cognitive function and made it difficult for him to speak. In planning his own funeral, he had seen a TED Talk by artist Jae Rhim Lee about her idea for a mushroom burial suit, and realized it was for him.

White had his death planning process filmed and turned into a short documentary. The Infinity Suit he chose is a hand-sewn shroud made of mushroom spores and other microorganisms that are supposed to aid in decomposition and neutralize toxins, according to Coeio, the company that makes the garment (which costs $1500).

[...]

White passed away in September and got his wish to be buried in the suit. Namrata Kollo, a partnerships manager with Coeio, says that planning ahead — the way White did — can help people make better decisions around their own death. "It not only eases the burden on them, but helps people think about the legacy they want to leave for the planet," she says. "With death, as much as possible, we'd like to become food of the planet and return nutrients."

People are now rethinking relationships with death and burials, from the ground up. It's part of a movement that reimagines humans' relationship with the earth, says Suzanne Kelly, author of "Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Our Tie to the Earth."

Traditional burial and even cremation -- which has an enormously large carbon footprint -- is just not sustainable.  Certainly not as modeled for excessive profit by the United States' monopolistic death merchant, Service Corporation International (operating funeral homes and cemeteries around the world under the Dignity Memorial brand).

Kelly points out that before the 1830s, people celebrated and buried their dead without caskets, embalming or vaults, on family farms or in church graveyards. But a rise of urbanism collided with a fear of sanitation. "It was believed that if something smelled bad, it would make you sick," Kelly says. Reformers set their sights on cemeteries and banned them from town centers. Slowly, people became more distanced from dead bodies.

Today, the way we manage the dead isn't sustainable. Each year, 2.6 million people die in the United States, and most are buried in a cemetery or cremated, impacting land use and contributing to climate change. 

Go read the article and watch the video.  It's an eye-opener, but not for those who are squeamish about death or the deathcare industry (yes, that's its real name).

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Saturday, July 11, 2015

Battleground Texas struggles to maintain relevance

If you're still wondering why Democrats in Texas cannot seem to find any traction despite the fact that the world's worst conservatives run this state lock. stock, and Jade Helm gun barrel... look no further than here.

It’s mid-summer, after the legislative session and before the proper start of next year’s election cycle, which means the state’s political organizations are in full churn. Politicos of all stripes are leaving politics for policy or vice versa, getting fired and promoted, and maybe leaving the game—or the state—altogether. That’s a normal part of life in politics, where jobs are often short-term and so is loyalty.

The same holds true at the high-profile organizing group Battleground Texas, where political director Cliff Walker will be stepping down next week. It’s the latest of a number of departures by Battleground senior staff since last year’s crushing electoral defeats. Walker, who had been with the organization since the beginning in 2013, was the highest-profile Texan in the group. As the relationship between Battleground and other parts of the Democratic coalition suffered during last year’s election due to mutual distrust, it fell to Walker, respected by other Texas Dems, to try to repair things.

But since November, a lot of Battleground’s founding notables have been looking for other work. A number of Obama campaign veterans have left for greener pastures in other states, including former Campaigns Director Ramsey Reid, former Communications Director Erica Sackin, and former Field Director Victoria Zyp. Former Digital Director Christina Oliver left the organization for a job at an Austin consulting firm owned by Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn’s former campaign manager. The departure of Walker means that a large part of the original Battleground brain trust is now gone.

That italic emphasis at the end there is mine.  I'm sure Ms Oliver is wonderful person with a fine family, as Ross Perot used to 'compliment' his political opponents.  Bless her heart (as the good Christians say), she just needs to put food on her family.

As wildly successful as BGTX was in the 2014 cycle, this self-implosion may not be a bad thing.  Texas is a goddamned tough state to be a liberal in, has been for almost a generation now.  I feel sure that wide-eyed Team Bluers think they can conquer it with the tools that work in places like Chicago or Los Angeles or New York, and then watch in horror as their battleships get sunk.

Political organizations like Battleground experience a high rate of turnover naturally. And for years, there’s been something of a conveyor belt taking talented Democratic political staffers away from Texas, or out of politics altogether—options that offer more rewarding work, and usually, bigger paychecks. Former Texas Democratic Party chief Will Hailer, who party leaders expected to stay for longer than one election cycle, jumped ship shortly after last year’s election for a Washington, D.C. consulting firm.

So Battleground’s staffing issues aren’t unique—a statement from the group called them “really normal transitions,” and pointed to the continuity of Executive Director Jenn Brown’s leadership—but they could pose a greater threat to the organization than progressive groups with deeper roots in Texas. One of the talking points when the group launched concerned Battleground’s ability to attract top talent from across the nation and fuse it with in-state know-how, helped along by a dedicated source of donor money. But it will most likely be harder for Battleground to recruit top talent now.

Whatever is left of the organization should probably be leveraged by the last of the deep-pocketed, legal eagle, azure-blue activist Mohicans, Steve Mostyn.  He's got a real good thing going with the Texas Organizing Project, so perhaps he can simply consolidate one outfit with the other, despite their somewhat divergent efforts (TOP is minority-focused while BGTX has been decidedly Anglo, IMHO).

Jeff Rotkoff, who represents one of Battleground’s largest backers, Houston mega-donor Steve Mostyn, praised Walker’s work and career and predicted he would “continue to be an important member of [the] community in whatever comes next for him.”

[...]

Brown is currently developing what a statement from the group called a new “strategic plan for the organization.” In it, she’ll need to come up with fixes for a host of unresolved issues regarding Battleground’s place in the Democratic coalition. In particular, some Texas Democrats worried that Battleground would turn into an adjunct of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, to the detriment of efforts in local and legislative races. That has echoes of one of the major conflicts of the 2014 cycle—some candidates felt that Battleground’s focus on a divisive top-ticket candidate, Wendy Davis, hurt down-ballot efforts.

First question: Does anybody know who Mostyn is supporting for president?  Second question: with Clinton's new point person's boots on the ground here, and a promise to roll out a 50-state strategy and build the Democratic bench and all that, who's going to be held accountable if/when a Clinton-Castro ticket still can't carry Texas against the likes of, say... Donald Trump?

Ultimately, Hillary Clinton is going to use Texas the way every other Democratic presidential nominee has used us for the past twenty years: as an ATM plugged into the elites, and as a farm system for fresh-faced young people who are willing to work for nothing, subsist on pizza for a year, and walk lots of blocks and make hundreds of phones calls in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado.

Please, someone make a case for how I am wrong.
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Monday, January 27, 2020

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance will be looking for signs of blue waves or red firewalls in the outcomes of tomorrow's special elections to fill empty seats in the Texas House.


To open: TXElects.

Tuesday is Election Night for voters in HD28, HD100 and HD148. We will have live coverage beginning at 7 p.m. CST at txelects.com/live.

COPE Endorsements: The Texas AFL-CIO COPE released its primary endorsements (yesterday). Candidates needed two-thirds support in order to earn the group’s endorsement, and in a few cases, two candidates in a race were endorsed. The group also endorsed a handful of Republicans, including a couple in contested primaries. Highlights include:
  • No endorsement for U.S. Senate because no candidate obtained the necessary support, which was seen as “a sign of group strength among the candidates.”
  • Primary challenger Jessica Cisneros over U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) in CD28
  • Primary challenger Amber Medina over Rep. Alex Dominguez (D-Brownsville) in HD37
  • Primary challenger Jerry Davis over Rep. Harold Dutton (D-Houston) in HD142
  • Xochil Peña Rodriguez over Rep. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) in SD19
  • Republican Mitch Thames and Democrat Patrick Henry in HD25 (open); and
  • Endorsing both Democrats vying to succeed the retiring Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford) in HD92.

All of the group’s endorsements have been incorporated into our Crib Sheets. (sub. req.)

AG: A Friday hearing in a Harris County court to determine whether the criminal security fraud trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton should be moved back to Collin County was postponed. The case was moved to Harris County from Collin County nearly three years ago. Paxton was indicted on three felony counts of securities fraud and acting as an unregistered investment adviser by a Collin County grand jury in July 2015. A similar federal case has been dismissed twice.

CD28: American Workers for Progress, a newly formed dark money group, has purchased $720K worth of TV advertising in support of Cuellar [...] An ad running in several district markets asks viewers to call Cuellar’s office to thank him for supporting lower prescription drug prices, which exempts the ad from disclosure under Federal Elections Commission rules. The group’s web site is a single page with a single sentence of text.

TXElects also provided some deeper analysis of the HD28 battleground.

Special elections are strange animals, and anything can happen in them (e.g. Laura Thompson becoming the first independent to win a House since 1936), but an Eliz Markowitz victory on Tuesday must be considered an upset were it to occur. ...

In the November special election, the six Republican candidates collectively received 61% of the vote, led by Gates’s 28%. Markowitz, the lone Democrat in the race, received the other 39%. Turnout was 19.7% of 148K registered voters. Markowitz received a majority of votes in 11 of the district’s 35 precincts. We expected Markowitz to be the clubhouse leader after the first round, but also thought her best chance of flipping the seat was winning outright then, when Republicans’ support was divided.

While this Fort Bend County district has gone from 14 points redder than the state as a whole in 2002 to less than a point redder in 2018, it was still nearly 3 points redder than any House district won by a Democrat that year. The majority of this observed partisan shift has occurred since 2014, when the district was 8 points redder than the state and the average statewide Democratic candidate received 30% of the vote head-to-head against the Republican. The average statewide Democrat fared 15.5 percentage points better in 2018 than in 2014, but still lost by an average of 9 points.

And following up, GOP political consultant Derek Ryan breaks down the early vote.



Kuff did four of Dem candidate interviews in HD26: Sarah DeMerchant, Lawrence Allen, Rish Oberoi, and Suleman Lalani.

SocraticGadfly invited people who claim they live in the land of the biggest wingnuts to visit the 13th Congressional District, the most GOP-friendly in the nation, where Sahara law is apparently even worse than sharia law.

Texas Lawyer (reg. req.) flooded the zone with (mostly Harris County) judicial race coverage.

If Republicans lose so much as one or two seats in the Texas Senate this November, Lite Guv Dan Patrick is ready to change the long-standing rules of the upper chamber.  Ross Ramsey at the TexTrib doesn't see anything wrong with that.

Greg Abbott didn't exactly roll out the welcome wagon for all of the newly-transplanted Texans, and some of us called him out for his nasty comments.


PDiddie at Brains and Eggs documented the Bernie Sanders surge in his regular weekly update of the Democratic presidential primary.

Houston Berners joined the Lone Star Barnstorm ...


... and Our Revolution Texas hosts its summit this Saturday in HTX.


There was a US Senate candidate debate/forum in Austin over the weekend, hosted by the Texas AFL-CIO in conjunction with their membership's primary endorsements election.


Things got a little spicy.



There remain some lingering questions as to whether the Libertarian and Green Party's candidates will be able to appear on the November ballot without having to pay the same fees that the Democratic and Republican parties pay (for the state to conduct their primary elections).



Progress Texas offers a list of Texas "certified progressive" Democrats, most of whom aren't all that progressive.  Rant: This is the problem with the usage of the word 'progressive'; it's lost all meaning due to bastardization by Blue Dogs and neoliberals who long ago got shamed out of using 'liberal' to refer to themselves.  Consider this, from their questionnaire to candidates:

Health Care for All

Health care is a right and all Texans deserve access to affordable health care. The State of Texas should expand Medicaid, which will save lives and bring home billions of our own federal tax dollars, and it is imperative that Congress protect the Affordable Care Act.

This is not the progressive position, and the good folks at Progress Texas are all smart enough to know it.  The same holds true for their education statement (click on the link above and see for yourself).  They don't parse their declarations with weasel words like "access" on women's rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, etc.  What would you think about a Democrat who said: "voters deserve access to the polling place", or "women deserve access to reproductive choice".  I'll use their words so that they can clearly understand: You have access to my vote, and your co-pay is supporting Medicare for All.  End of rant.

We still have issues with spontaneous industrial plant combustion in our beloved Texas.



And the same old problems with follow-up and follow-through by the regulatory and safety-authorized federal and state agencies.



The second weekend of the Women's March in Houston drew another large crowd.


The first-ever Texas Hemp Convention opens tomorrow in Dallas.


Texas is poised for explosive growth in hemp and CBD. The Texas Hemp Convention has over 300 exhibiting businesses, bringing together industry experts and thought leaders from around the country. With more than 10,000 people expected to attend the convention, there are opportunities for consumers and businesses alike.

The highlight of the convention is the educational component. Featuring over 150 educational sessions from more than 130 speakers, including keynote speaker Rep. Tracy King, the Texas state representative responsible for House Bill 1325, which legalized hemp farming and the production of hemp products in Texas.

Tickets can be purchased through eventbrite and at the convention center during the event.

But both farmers and consumers are -- or should be -- treading carefully.


(The Texas) market for CBD, or cannabidiol, is exploding. Stores are popping up across the state selling tinctures and topicals. It’s being mixed into smoothies and coffee at cafes. Spas are advertising CBD massages and therapies. And much of the sudden spike in popularity is thanks to a Texas law last year that legalized hemp, the plant from which CBD is derived.

“You go anywhere now, and you find something that says ‘CBD’ on it,” said Kerver, who’s now in talks with Austin distributors interested in carrying her CBD product line, called 1937 Apothecary.

But buyer beware, experts warn. Anyone can sell CBD in Texas. Many of the products are advertised as natural alternatives to prescription medications and make unfounded claims to treat conditions like chronic pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia, diabetes and psychosis. None of these claims are recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

And because of lax labeling and licensing regulations, unsuspecting consumers may not actually know what they’re buying.

“Unless you really know that it’s something reputable, I would say to be wary because you don’t really know that it is even CBD,” Kerver said.

In 2018, the federal government passed a new Farm Bill legalizing hemp and derivatives, like CBD, with less than 0.3% of THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. Hemp and marijuana are both part of the cannabis plant family, but while marijuana is rich in THC and produces a high, hemp contains only traces of the psychoactive compounds and is richer in CBD.

In June, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill legalizing hemp and bringing state policy in line with federal law.

Confusion on the part of law enforcement has led to the wrongful arrests of some in possession of CBD or hemp even after the Texas law went into effect. Still, the policy change is an important step on the way to allowing Texans to partake without fear of reprisal, according to Lisa Pittman, a lawyer on the Texas Department of Agriculture’s industrial hemp advisory council.

Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast asks: "What do Greg Abbott, Croatia, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, ancient Hebrews, 6th century Greeks, Hammurabi, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders all have in common?"

They all implemented (or in the case of the Democratic presidential candidates, want to implement) large debt forgiveness programs that boosted their popularity and helped resolve problems deriving from intractable income inequality.


Transportation and infrastructure was a hot topic for several Texas bloggers. Mean Green Cougar Red is skeptical of fare-free public transit.  So is Tory Gattis at Houston Strategies.  TXDoT is moving ahead with its 30-year plan ...

It wasn’t that long ago – last summer – that the Texas Transportation Commission made its last major transportation decision: ceding construction of the final segments of the Grand Parkway. That’s because transportation planning is a like a Russian nesting doll: a 5-year strategic plan within a 10-year 'Unified Transportation Program' within a 30-year 'Texas Transportation Plan'.

... and the I-45 realignment/reconstruction through downtown Houston continues to generate discussion and proposals.




Let me close up another Wrangle with some of the lighter-side items.

SocraticGadfly laughed when Texas Monthly said Fredericksburg is the new Aspen, then shook his head at what TM (perhaps deliberately?) missed.

In addition to great barbecue and music, Austin has cool hiking trails and ultra-cool boutique hotels, but there's one in Nacogdoches that just might have a leg up on the capital city.

The Fredonia Hotel’s fascinating past reveals the collaborative Texas spirit behind this tourist destination and town. According to the hotel's Texas history milestones, builders sold stock in the hotel to town residents at $50 a share. It was actually named after the area’s 1826 Fredonia Rebellion when a group of settlers declared Nacogdoches independent from Mexico.


Sean O'Neal watched 911: Lone Star so you don't have to.

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