Rep. Brown's Racist Remark

In their zeal to cram a Voter ID bill (actually a voter suppression bill) through the Texas Legislature, some members of the Texas House are letting their racist tendencies show. For example, consider the statements made by Rep. Betty Brown (R-Terrell).

Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese-Americans, was testifying before the House on the problems the proposed bill could cause for many Asian-Americans. He said people of Chinese, Japanese or Korean descent often have ID problems because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name used on Driver's Licenses or school forms. This could interfere with their right to vote if the Voter ID bill is passed.

That's when Rep. Brown piped up and said, "Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese -- I understand it's a rather difficult language -- do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?"

Then she later told the witness, "Can't you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that's easier for Americans to deal with?"

How dare she tell any American to change their name! Who made her the arbiter of what's a good American name and what is not? No American should have to change their name to vote in Texas or any other state, even if racists like Rep. Brown have trouble pronouncing the name.

Her ridiculous remarks have now traveled well outside of Texas and offended people all over the country (in addition to embarrassing her home state). John C. Liu, a NYC councilman, is now demanding an apology from Rep. Brown. He says, "It's outrageous and insulting for you to suggest it would 'behoove' us to adopt another name, to give up our birthright and a part of our own identity, in order to exercise our right to vote."

Brown now says she "probably wasn't speaking just as I should." She has said she will apologize to Mr. Ko "if I offended him." Let me make this clear for Ms. Brown. YES, YOUR STATEMENTS WERE OFFENSIVE! They were not just offensive to Asian-Americans, but to decent Americans of all races and ethnicities.

We should not have to put up with such racist and offensive behavior from an elected official.

Iowa Gothic

Political Cartoon is by David Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star.

Amarillo Approaches 200,000

As you drive into Amarillo, there's a sign that says the population is officially 173,627. I moved up here about 2 1/2 years ago and my job takes me all over the city. I have always believed the population has to be a lot closer to 200,000 than to 173,000. It looks like my feeling has been verified.

City planners say Amarillo is experiencing a slow but steady growth rate of 1 % to 2% a year. They figure the city now has about 191,514 people. Although the city is approaching 200,000, they don't believe it will reach that point by the next census in 2010.

These city planners are breathing a sigh of relief, because if the city reaches 200,000 in the next census then they will lose about $1 million in funds for city transit from the Federal Transit Administration.

Personally, I think they'd better be looking for a way to replace that $1 million. I believe it's a definite possibility that if an accurate count is done for the 2010 census, including undocumented immigrants, the city may already be at the 200,000 level. Even in this poor economy, there's a lot of building going on here -- especially in the southern and western parts of the city.

I guess we'll find out who's right next year. What do you Amarillo resdents think? Will we reach 200,000 by next year, or not?

A New Season

Political Cartoon is by Bob Englehart in The Hartford Courant.

Fun Family Project Is Important Invention

With all the problems facing the world today, sometimes we can fall into the trap of thinking that the solutions can only be fould in scientific labs or think tanks after spending millions of dollars. But that's not necessarily true. Sometimes a solution can be simple, cheap and done quickly.

Jon Bohmer, a Norwegian living in Kenya, decided he wanted to do a simple project that his two young daughters could help with. He wasn't out to save the world, but just to have some fun with his daughters. But their weekend project wound up winning the $75,000 FT Climate Change Challenge, which rewards and publicizes innovative and practical solutions to global warming.

What Bohmer and his daughters had built was an extraordinarily efficient solar oven that could be built for around $5.00. Here's how CNN described the oven:

"The ingeniously simple design uses two cardboard boxes, one inside the other, and an acrylic cover that lets in the sun's rays and traps them. Black paint on the inner box, and silver foil on the outer one, help concentrate the heat. The trapped rays make the inside hot enough to cook casseroles, bake bread and boil water. What the box also does is eliminate the need in developing countries for rural residents to cut down trees for firewood. About 3 billion people around the world do so, adding to deforestation and, in turn, global warming."

In addition to eliminating the need to find and haul firewood, the oven could also save the lives of millions of children by providing a way to boil water cheaply and efficiently, killing the germs and making the water safe to drink.

Bohmer has named his oven the Kyoto Box, after the international global warming treaty. It is now being produced in a factory in Nairobi that has the capacity to produce millions of boxes a month. Now they just have to get the ovens to the poor people who need them. He has also now developed a more durable version out of recycled plastic, which can be made a cheaply as the cardboard version.

Bohmer says, "In the West, we cook with electricity, so it's easy to ignore this problem. But half the world's population is still living in a stone age. The only way for them to cook is to make a fire. I don't want to see another 80-year-old woman carrying 20 kilos of firewood on her back. Maybe we don't have to."

Maybe things aren't as hopeless as they sometimes seem.

Smoking More !

Political Cartoon is by Mike Keefe in The Denver Post.

End The Cuban Embargo !

A delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus went to Cuba this week and met with both of the Castro brothers (Fidel and Raul). They were very warmly received. In fact, Fidel Castro wrote in the Cuban newspaper Granma, "I value the gesture of this legislative group. The aura of [the Rev. Martin] Luther King is accompanying them. Our press has given broad coverage of their visit. They are exceptional witnesses to the respect that U.S. citizens visiting our homeland always receive."

Speaking for the congressional group, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California) said, "Our purpose was to see if there were preconditions on the Cuban side. We heard that there were no preconditions. And, in fact, we wanted to find out if they were interested. We have to remember that every country in Latin America, 15 countries, have normal relations with Cuba. ... We're the country which is isolated."

Finally, we have some people from both countries talking sense. It is time we had serious talks with the island nation, with an eye toward normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States. But there should be no preconditions from either side.

In the past, the United States has always had a set of rather onerous preconditions to talks with Cuba. Basically, we wanted Castro to give up power and let us determine what kind of government Cuba should have. Those kind of preconditions were guaranteed to prevent any talks, and that's really what we wanted. We didn't want talks -- we wanted surrender.

The truth is that what kind of government Cuba has, or who runs the Cuban government, is none of our business. We would not let them dictate our government or leaders, so what makes us think we have the right to do that to them?

Cuba is a tiny nation and poses no real danger to the United States. There is no reason why we should treat them as an enemy. A normalization of relations would be a positive benefit to both countries. It is time to do it.

Hopefully, President Obama will listen to the members of the Congressional Black Congress and start talks with Cuba. Fifty years of a failed embargo has only hurt both countries. But in addition to no preconditions, we must show Cuba a little respect and treat her as an equal -- a country that has the right to determine its own destiny.

Cuba is no longer an American possession, and we must stop treating her as though she were (or should be).

The Solution ?

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Fox Network Thinks Layoffs Are Entertainment

I have to wonder just what the hell is wrong with the people over at Fox Television. Their news network has long been a sick perversion of journalism, and now it looks like their entertainment division is going down the same sick path. These depraved nutjobs have decided that people losing their jobs could make for fun and entertaining television.

They are developing a new reality series called Someone's Gotta Go. Each week, the series will go to a small business that is in trouble and needs to layoff at least one employee. The employees, in true game show style, will get to decide which employee will be fired. The fired employee will be given a small severance.

I am amazed that they would even consider doing such a show, but they say they have had no trouble finding businesses that want to participate. Do they really think someone losing their job is entertaining?

In this economy, we have thousands of people losing their jobs each week. I can assure you none of those people found it fun or entertaining. They have lost the ability to support themselves and their families, and in a shrinking economy like ours, the chance of finding a new job is not good.

Mike Darnell, chief of Fox's alternate programming says, "It’s certainly no worse than watching the news every night and hearing all the statistics and watching what is happening." He's very wrong. People watch the news to get the facts about what is happening, and I don't believe they find the news of growing job losses to be entertaining. It is much more likely that they find it to be frightening.

Instead of canning some poor working man each week, how about a show where a Fox TV executive gets fired each week (with no golden parachute)? Now that would be entertaining!

Clearly Peaceful ?

Political Cartoon is by Cameron (Cam) Cardow in The Ottawa Citizen.

Republican Teabagging

Well, this is sort of shocking. It seems that thousands of right-wing Republicans are getting together for teabag parties all across the nation on April 15th, and a group of them are even getting together here in Amarillo -- in public! These Panhandle Republican teabaggers must have some stamina, because they're having two parties -- one at noon at the Potter County Courthouse and another at six at the Ross Street Post Office.

I always thought they were a little too insistent on their "abstinence only" talk -- sort of a "Methinks thou doth protest too much" sort of thing. But public orgies? I'd have thought they'd want to do this sort of thing behind closed doors.

But they are Republicans, and with leaders like Larry Craig and David Vitter, I guess I should have known it would eventually come to something like this. Must be about core Repub values.

Real Effect Of Tobacco Tax

Political Cartoon is by Larry Wright in The Detroit News.

Different ?

From the website Atheist Comics.

Panhandle Reps Vote Against Soldiers

We've been listening to Republicans talk for the last few years about how much they support our soldiers and their families. The Republicans here in the Panhandle of Texas are no different. To hear them talk, one would think they're willing to go the extra mile for soldiers who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly, it looks like that was nothing but talk.

Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Fort Worth) decided the Texas Legislature needed to take some action to help soldiers and their families. He offered an amendment to SB297 (authored by Senator Leticia Van De Putte). The amendment would extend tuition benefits to the children of active duty soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would help about 1000 children whose fathers and/or mothers are serving our country.

Now this would seem to me to be something we should be proud to do. Our soldiers certainly don't make much money for risking their lives for us, and it is only right that we could take this worry off their shoulders. Fortunately, most Texas representatives agreed and the amendment was overwhelmingly passed (as was SB297).

But guess who voted against the amendment and the bill. That's right -- all three of our Panhandle representatives. John Smithee, David Swinford and Warren Chisum (pictured) all voted against the amendment and the bill. The bill itself would let veterans, their spouses and children to pay the in-state rate for tuition regardless of how long they've lived in the state.

When it comes to actually supporting our soldiers and veterans, it looks like our Panhandle reps are all talk and no action.