High School Punishes Top Student

This story is rather hard to believe. It seems that Grapevine High School, in northeast Tarrant County, has decided that its top-ranked student should not be named valedictorian this year. Instead, they have given the honor to the student with the second-highest grade average.

Anjali Datta (pictured above) finished high school with a grade-point average of 5.877. That was the highest average of the 471 graduating students. In fact, it is believed to be the highest average in the school's 103-year history. So why is she not the school's valedictorian?

It seems that she took some of the high school courses while she was in middle school, and because of this she was able to finish high school in three years. But the school has an arcane rule that says the valedictorian is the person with the highest average over "four years of high school".

In effect, she is being punished for finishing high school early -- even though she took the same courses and did all of her coursework in Grapevine. A counselor had recommended she graduate early, telling her the rule was meant to stop students from transferring in from less rigorous schools and grabbing the title.

The school said they've been discussing this for months with their attorneys, and decided to go with a literal interpretation of the rule. They didn't notify Datta of the decision until March. The decision not only denies Datta the title of valedictorian, but also the college scholarship that goes with it.

This just doesn't sound right to me, since all of her high school courses were completed while attending Grapevine schools. Sometimes rules get in the way of doing the right thing.

Texas Courts Make Questionable Decisions

Yesterday, Texas courts made a couple of decisions that were controversial to say the least. One involved a lawsuit against the makers of Vioxx, and the other involved the FLDS cult headed by the jailed Warren Jeffs (pictured above).

A Texas jury had awarded the wife of Robert Ernst a $253 million dollar verdict against Merck and Company. The jury felt the drug Vioxx was responsible for Ernst's death. Texas law lowered the verdict to $26 million, which was still a respectable amount for the widow and a significant deterrent for the company.

But a three-judge appellate panel decided the jury was wrong. They decided there was no evidence against the drug company and reversed the verdict. Their decision completely wipes out the $26 million judgement.

One thing that makes this look bad is the fact that all three judges had received large campaign donations from the law firms representing the drug company. Whether it was or not, this gives the perception that this was a verdict that had been bought and paid for. If it's not already, it should be illegal for law firms to give money to judges and then appear before those judges with a legal case.

The widows attorney said he is considering appealing the case to the Texas Supreme Court. That sounds like a waste of time to me. The Texas Supreme Court has established a reputation for its corporate-friendly verdicts, not to mention the fact that several of the justices have ethical problems of their own (including taking contributions from law firms that appear before them).

In the other case, the Texas Supreme Court decided that Texas authorities did not have a right to remove the young children from the FLDS cult compound in West Texas. They have ordered the state to return the children to the cult compound.

They did this in spite of evidence that several under-age girls had given birth to babies. There were also pictures of cult-leader Warren Jeffs kissing 12 and 13 year-old girls (see above). Evidently the court is quite happy to send these children back into an abusive environment.

Whether the original warrant was justifiable or not, there should be a way to protect these children, especially the young girls, from sexual abuse.

I find both of these verdicts questionable.

Scott McClellan Is No Hero

The major media outlets are all atwitter over former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's new book. In the book, he accuses Bush and Cheney of lying to Americans about Iraq and using propaganda to make their case for war. He also accuses Karl Rove and Scooter Libby of leaking to the press that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA agent, and then lying about it. Then he says the administration disastrously mishandled Katrina.

I could go on about his "revelations", but I have to ask -- is any of this really news? Is there anyone in America with half a brain that doesn't know all of this? In fact, it didn't take a genius to figure this out several years ago.

I'm sure he thinks he's done something by finally being honest, but this guy is no hero. He helped Bush lie to America, resulting in the deaths of over 4,000 Americans and the physical and psychological wounding of tens of thousands more. If he'd said these things five years ago, I could at least think he was a decent human being -- but not now.

He's just a weasel trying to salvage his own reputation, and willing to turn on his fellow weasels to do it. I'm certainly not going to spend a dime on this stupid book. McClellan doesn't deserve it, and there's nothing in it that rational people didn't figure out years ago.

The White House has acted predictably. They have begun the process of sliming McClellan (who probably deserves it), and are once again trying to throw others under the bus to protect Bush and Cheney.

Spokesmen tell us that Bush didn't lie, he was given bad information by the "incompetent" intelligence sources. Nonsense. The CIA tried to tell Bush and his cohorts that Iraq did not buy uranium from Niger and there was no real evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

But that was not what Bush and Cheney wanted to hear, so they lied to the American people. Then they sent Powell to the U.N. to lie to the rest of the world. And they got their dirty little war. Too bad they didn't know how to handle it.

McClellan is telling the truth finally, but that certainly doesn't make him any kind of hero. Just another weasel trying to save his own hide now that it looks like the Democrats may come to power.

Van Os Speaks About $4 Gas

The venerable David Van Os has written a piece on $4.00 a gallon gasoline and the corporate-government complex. As usual, he says it better than I could hope to, so I will just shut up and give you his words:

This very moment, millions of Texans are struggling to find ways to stretch their paychecks and retirement checks to cover $3.80 per gallon gasoline. This very moment, local governments are struggling to balance budgets in the face of ever-rising fuel costs. This very moment, independent business owners are struggling to keep their businesses afloat in light of the ever-increasing cost of fuel. This very moment, independent farmers and ranchers are struggling to stay alive in the face of fuel costs that keep going up. This very moment, food prices are spiraling out of control due to the shock waves of high fuel costs. This very moment, truckers find it more and more difficult to meet the expenses of keeping the geographical and economic fabrics stitched together.

But some people are making out just fine.

Exxon-Mobil's net profit for 2007 was 40 billion dollars and the profits have continued to rise in 2008. The other Big Oil giants are not far behind. Surprise, surprise -- 3 billion dollars a month wasn't enough profit. But the price at the gasoline pump keeps going up on the path to $4 per gallon and beyond at the same time that profits keep rising to these ever more unimaginable levels. This equation doesn't balance.

It is a fact of history and economics that the consolidation of great economic power into too few sets of hands inevitably results in the exercise of monopoly power and control. The continuing mergers of giant oil companies that began in the late 1990s have resulted in such consolidation to staggering degrees. We the people are witnessing the proof coming out in the pudding.

The oil company executives and their political lackeys want us to think that magical, mysterious market forces are in charge and nobody has any control over the situation. Yeah, right -- Exxon-Mobil is a mere bystander to both its $3.5 billion-per-month profits and $3.80-per-gallon gasoline, and cries all the way to the bank. Don't we all know that the corporate executives wish they could rebate some of the profits back to the consumers, but that they are forced by "the market" to gouge us against their wishes?

Here in Texas, our cultural roots stand solidly against monopoly power. The Bill of Rights of the Texas Constitution declares in Article 1, Section 26 that monopolies are contrary to the genius of free government and shall never be allowed. Texas was the second political jurisdiction in the world to enact an anti-trust statute -- in the 1880s, a decade before the U.S. Congress passed federal anti-trust legislation. That first Texas anti-trust law was drafted by then-attorney general James Stephen Hogg, one of the great people's lawyers to occupy that office, who needed it and used it to challenge and beat the railroad barons on behalf of the people of Texas.

The creation of monopoly power does not create jobs. The last 25 years' worth of corporate consolidations throughout all sectors of industry have resulted in continuing losses of good jobs as the newly merged entities proceed to downsize their workforces in order to pay for the mergers and acquisitions. For example, over 9,000 jobs were lost when Exxon and Mobil merged to create Exxon-Mobil in 1999.

Monopolization smothers free enterprise by eliminating competition. Free enterprise, both for workers and for independent business owners, requires competition in order to survive and prosper. Confronting the robber barons over their monopolization of markets and industries by taking action to revive competition would take us a long way toward the revival of lost jobs and resuscitation of the gasping middle class.

But where is the political will? Too many of today's politicians accept the robber barons' excuses and double-talk without question, because too many of today's politicians have been purchased by bucketfuls of protection money in the form of campaign contributions.

As he was leaving office in January 1961, former President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation about the military-industrial complex. If Eisenhower were alive today, he would probably be appalled to see that what he called the military-industrial complex has morphed beyond what even he feared, to become the corporate-government complex of today that pollutes our Founding Fathers' vision of democracy at virtually every level.

David Van Os

McCain Has Fund-Raising Problems

Our friend Pico over at Wild Chihuahuas (an Arizona blog) tells us that John McCain is having some troubles with fund-raising in his own home state. He was supposed to have a fund-raising event with George Bush in the Phoenix Convention Center, but that event has now been cancelled.

The White House said the event had been moved to a private venue because McCain preferred it that way. However, other sources say they were having problems selling tickets to the event. They realized they were not going to come anywhere near filling the venue. In fact, it looked like the anti-war protesters would outnumber the McCain supporters!

I would think a campaign is in trouble when it can't fill a venue like the convention center in the largest city of the candidate's home state. That has to be an embarrassment.

Voters Have A Real Choice This Year

There is a huge difference between the two parties nominees for president this year when it comes to the seemingly endless occupation of Iraq. Two candidates could not have more different views than Barack Obama and John McCain.

During the Vietnam War, sometimes it was hard to see the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans as far as the war went -- it was just a matter of degree. Neither party could really be called the party of peace. It is not that way in 2008.

John McCain will make sure the Republicans remain the party of war. For all his protesting that he is different than Bush, you certainly could not tell it by looking at his views on the Iraq War. He is actually trying to put forth the idea that we can win the Iraq War.

In fact, yesterday he made the statement that he would NEVER surrender in Iraq. It looks like he was serious about that "hundred years". Whether you call it "surrender" or "withdrawal", the conflict will not end until American troops leave Arabic soil. Surely he does not think the Iraqis will surrender their country to a foreign invader.

Ask yourself, would we ever surrender our own country to a foreign invader and accept a puppet government put in place by that invader? I think not. Why would we then expect the Iraqis to do so?

On the other hand, Barack Obama understands the dirty truth about the Iraq War. He opposed it from the very beginning. He says we must start a dialogue with countries in the region and get them involved in negotiations for peace in the area. He believes we can have our soldiers home in no more than 12-16 months.

Some say we cannot leave because there would be a bloodbath between Sunnis and Shiites. But that might be avoided with a multi-party Arab peacekeeping force established through diplomacy and negotiation. But the killing will never stop as long as Americans are based on Arab soil -- and Obama realizes that.

So voters have a choice as clear as night and day. We can continue to follow the Bush/McCain policies and endure many more years of war and see thousands more of our soldiers die. Or we can give Obama the opportunity to fashion an honorable withdrawal, and let the Arabs choose their own path.

We do not have to be an enemy to the Arabic world. They would like to be our friends. But they will never submit to America's will through force of arms. Isn't it time to vote for peace and a sensible solution to our problems with the Muslim world?

I think 4,084 American deaths are enough. I'm voting for Obama.

Tarrant County Is Getting Greedy

It looks like the Republican leadership is getting too greedy in Tarrant County. Now they want to tax an educational institution -- Texas Christian University. For them, it's not enough that the university provides hundreds of jobs for the local economy and brings thousands of students to Fort Worth. These students buy from many businesses and increase the sales tax revenue for the area.

No one can deny that the university is a big boon to the local economy, but it now looks like Tarrant County wants even more. Last January, the university opened a new bookstore that is run by Barnes and Noble. The Tarrant Appraisal District wants the university to pay property taxes on the new bookstore.

Now the tax district doesn't charge property taxes on the bookstores of other universities in Tarrant County -- Texas Wesleyan University and the University of Texas at Arlington. But they claim the new TCU bookstore caters to the general public, and not just to TCU students.

That is just ridiculous. No university bookstore anywhere will refuse to sell to the general public. I imagine they would all love to have even more business from the general public. Even though I graduated many years ago, I still like to stop in the university bookstore at my alma mater (Texas Wesleyan) whenever I am in Fort Worth.

It speaks well of TCU that the general public would shop at their bookstore. It shows the depth of support for the university among the general public. This is certainly no reason to punish the university with an onerous tax bill.

Who does the tax district think is going to have to pay that bill? It will be the students, of course. It's not bad enough that tuition and other costs keep rising, but now the county has added a tax burden for the students to pay. This is just wrong.

TCU owns the property and the bookstore. Barnes and Noble just run it for them. And the majority of the business the bookstore does is student business. The school says that 75% of the revenue for the bookstore comes from textbook sales. Add to this the other school items such as athletic gear, class rings, book bags and a lot of other items emblazoned with the school logo and colors, and the school thinks it is completing its mission -- to serve the students.

The Tarrant Appraisal District needs to reconsider their very unwise decision. In order to continue serving their students and the community-at-large, TCU needs to keep its costs to students down as low as possible. The tax district seems to be working against that goal.

Tarrant County government needs to stop and think. TCU is too great a benefit to Tarrant County to be treated this way.

Sanctuary Movement Started In San Antonio

A new sanctuary movement has been started in San Antonio to help undocumented immigrants. They are Catholic faith-based activists who have organized to provide food, healthcare and places to stay for the immigrants.

Currently the group visits day laborers, giving them breakfast and a card. The card has a picture of Father Toribio Romo on one side and a phone number on the other. They can call the phone number and use the code word "Romo" to get help.

Toribio Romo was a Mexican priest who was killed in the 1920's and later canonized. Many of the undocumented immigrants pray to him during their dangerous crossing into this country.

The group members know they are flirting with the possibility of violating U.S. immigration laws, and many of them are willing to go to jail for their beliefs. They say their religious and moral tenets are more important than unjust laws. As Lee Thelien of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church says, "We're accomplices if we don't speak out against this injustice."

I admire these people. I am not a religious person, but I do respect the few christians brave enough to actually follow the teachings of their faith. Far too often in our modern world, religion is nothing more than a way to hurt and discriminate against those who are not liked.

People who are willing to put their freedom at stake to help the downtrodden deserve our respect.

Repubs Nearly Dodge The "Barr" Bullet

The Libertarians held their national convention this past weekend, and it looked for a while like Republicans might get lucky and not have the Libertarians nominate a candidate that would appeal to many in their disaffected base.

There were 14 candidates seeking the Libertarian nomination for president. The only one who has any real public name-identification is former right-wing Republican congressman from Georgia, Bob Barr. Many thought because he was a well-known ex-congressman, Barr would easily get the nomination. But it didn't work out that way.

The Libertarian rules says the contest goes as many ballots as necessary to give one candidate a majority of votes cast. With each round, the person with the least votes (and anybody with less than 5%) is dropped from the ballot.

After the fifth round of voting, it still looked like the Republicans might not have to worry about Bob Barr. The fifth round had Texas candidate Mary Ruwart in first place with 37%, Barr in second place with 36% and Wayne Allyn Root finishing last with 21%. It all came down to who Root's supporters would back in the sixth round.

That's when Root showed how badly he wanted on the national ticket in any capacity. He threw his support to Barr, and asked Barr's supporters to support him for the vice-presidential nomination. That did it. On the sixth ballot, Barr received 52% of the vote and became the nominee. Without Root's political opportunism, Barr might well have lost.

But Barr is now the nominee, and that has to have establishment Republicans worried. McCain is already having problems with the right-wing fundamentalist base of the Republican Party. Until yesterday, it looked like they might be forced to vote for McCain, even though they really don't like him. Now they have an alternative.

This will make it much harder for McCain to move toward the middle and try to appeal to independents. If he tries to do it, he could lose a big chunk of his base to right-winger Bob Barr. The Libertarians were hoping to pass the one million mark in votes in this election. With Barr's established right-wing credentials, they could do even better than that.

I don't know if they needed it or not, but the Democrats just got a little help for the November election.

Cornyn Hates The Troops

It's getting harder and harder to have even a ounce of respect for the junior senator from Texas. A couple of days ago, the U.S. Senate voted 75-22 to pass a new G.I. Bill. This bill grants education benefits to those who have served our country in the military. Guess who was one of the 22 senators voting against the bill?

That's right -- Senator Cornyn of Texas voted against supplying the education benefits for our soldiers! It was bad enough that "Chickenhawk" Cornyn avoided military duty himself and then voted to support Bush starting an unnecessary war in Iraq. A war that has killed at least 4,081 American soldiers and wounded, both physically and psychologically, many thousands more.

It became worse when he voted time and again to continue the war, even after it became obvious to most Americans that it was a terrible blunder. Now he has voted to deny education benefits to those who fought in the unnecessary war he helped to start and continue. The man has no shame!

This makes it very clear that the people of Texas need a new senator. They need a senator that will support and help our brave soldiers. Fortunately, there is such a candidate in this election -- Rick Noriega.

Lt. Col. Rick Noriega has proudly served his country in the military -- commanding troops in the Afghanistan conflict.He understands what our soldiers are going through because he has experienced it himself. He also believes that we owe these soldiers a debt when they return.

Noriega thinks we must offer our returning troops the best medical and psychological care. He also knows that we must fulfill our obligation to help these troops get an education and find decent jobs.

I don't know why Cornyn hates our troops, but his actions show that he does. He's even said he will vote to support Bush if he vetos the new G.I. Bill. It's time to replace him. Support Rick Noriega for Senate.

Clinton's Latest Gaffe

The news media have been buzzing about Clinton's latest blunder. Speaking to a newspaper's editorial board last Friday, she said, "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."

Her campaign was quick to say that her emphasis was not on the assassination, but on the primary still being undecided in June. That's a bit disingenuous though. There were a lot more states holding late primaries in 1992 and 1968.

In 2008, most states have moved there primaries and caucuses up -- in fact, they will all be completed by June 3rd. In those years, it was also not impossible for Bill Clinton or Kennedy to catch up in pledged delegates, as it already is this year for Clinton.

Clinton did say, "The Kennedys have been much on my mind in the last days because of Sen. Kennedy, and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for the entire nation and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever."

She's right that it was insensitive of her to bring up the Kennedy assassination just after the tragic news about Senator Edward Kennedy's cancer diagnosis. But that was not the worst thing about her statement. Far worse was the implied imagery of something like that happening to Barack Obama.

This nation still has far too much racism. But in spite of it, a majority of the Democrat's pledged delegates have chosen a black man as their presidential nominee. Add this to the fact that Clinton has continued her campaign even after being mathematically eliminated. The only way she could become the nominee is if something bad happened to Obama.

In light of those facts, I have to wonder about Clinton's assassination reference. Is she continuing her hopeless campaign because she thinks something like that will happen to Obama? That's pretty ghoulish.

Are Republicans Running Scared ?

"This is a challenging time to be a Republican. No question about it. What happened in Dallas can happen anywhere in Texas. We know that. . . .We're the underdogs and we have to act like it." That's what Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams told a meeting of Republican GOTV workers last Tuesday night.

Just two years ago that would have been a laughable statement. After all, there are few states, if any, that were redder than Texas. But then Dallas County, long a Republican stronghold, did the unthinkable and turned blue in the 2006 election.

Since that time, the general public has turned against the war in Iraq and the economy has gone into the toilet. Add that to the fact that Democrats turned out about twice as many voters in their primary as Republicans did in Texas, and you have a formula for a possible Democratic victory. Even the well-financed Republican incumbent senator is leading his virtually unknown Democratic opponent by only 4 points.

Now Williams was trying to light a fire under his Republican workers. I don't think Republicans are quite underdogs in Texas -- not yet. But they know they have not done well with their turn in charge of this country and this state.

The stage is set for a real battle for the first time in years here in Texas. Will the Republican base turn out to support a candidate (McCain) that they're not really exicited about? Can the Democrats get that record number of primary voters back to the polls? We won't know the answer to those questions until November.

But for the first time in a very long time, the Republicans are running scared. There's a very good chance they face a devastating loss across the nation this Fall -- and it could even extend to the state of Texas.

FW Judge Gets Official Reprimand

A Fort Worth judge has received a public reprimand from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. The commission said County Court-at-Law Judge Brent Keis was guilty of making racially insensitive remarks to an African-American attorney appearing in his court.

They also said his "unsolicited discussion of the facts, evidence and apparent value" of the car crash case in his court was "coercive and intimidating". They concluded that the statements made in the case last year had created doubts in the minds of the attorney and his clients "about the impartiality of the court regarding the merits of the case".

This all started last year when an African-American attorney was appearing before Keis' court. Keis remarked that African-Americans were good athletes because when their ancestors were brought over on slave ships, only the strong survived as the weak had died and been thrown overboard. This statement would have been outrageous enough, but the judge went further.

He then told the attorney's white clients that Tarrant county juries are made up of white Republicans like him, and continuing the case would be like "betting on black". This statement convinced the clients that the court was prejudiced against them. I don't blame them. I would have thought the same thing. What else could be construed from such inappropriate remarks from the judge?

The judge got off easy. He was publicly reprimanded and ordered to attend an 8-hour course on racial sensitivity and diversity. He has 120 days to complete the course.

He deserved a much harsher punishment. This was nothing short of judicial intimidation. I hope the good citizens of Tarrant county remember this when this fool comes up for re-election. He doesn't deserve the position of power and trust he has been given by the people.

Another Victory For Equality

"I am proud of my career and want to continue doing my job. Wounded people never asked me about my sexual orientation. They were just glad to see me there." Those are the words of Major Margaret Witt. Witt was a decorated flight nurse, whose citation from President Bush said, "Her airmanship and courage directly contributed to the successful accomplishment of important missions under extremely hazardous conditions."

Now you might think the military would be proud to have such a dedicated soldier and nurse in their ranks -- but you would be wrong. The same year Witt (pictured above) received her citation, during a war and a military nursing shortage, the Air Force kicked her out.

It seems that they had, to their ultimate horror, discovered that she was homosexual and had a long-term relationship with a civilian woman. Even though she had 18 years of distinguished service (two short of receiving retirement benefits), they canned her. They were just following their "Don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuality.

This shows the ridiculous nature of that policy. How could you possibly terminate a dedicated professional during a war and with a critical nursing shortage? Not to mention ruining the career of an officer who had done nothing wrong. Witt justifiably filed suit against the military.

A U.S. District Court judge dismissed her case, but on Wednesday the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that dismissal. The court ruled that the military's policy must be reconsidered in light of a 2003 Supreme Court decision that found a Texas ban on sodomy was an unconstitutional invasion of an individual's right to privacy.

The court said the military must prove it has a good reason for each dismissal. The opinion says, "When the government attempts to intrude upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals, the government must advance an important governmental interest...and the intrusion must be neccessary to further that interest."

In other words, it is no longer enough to say a person is a homosexual. The military must prove that fact causes actual harm to the military's mission. This destroys the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy because even if a person "tells", the military cannot take action unless they can prove it causes harm.

Many homosexual Americans have sacrificed their lives and their health by serving our country in the military. It's about time they were treated fairly.