Drinking, Driving, and DAs: The Lehmberg Story Has Gotten Too Interesting for Austin’s Good (UPDATED)

Posted on May 1, 2013 by wellsdc

From “Remove Rosemary Lehmberg” on Facebook

The Travis County legal community is choosing sides in the battle over whether our currently-incarcerated district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg, should get to keep her job when she gets out of jail in a few weeks. She is currently serving a 45-day sentence for driving while intoxicated, which could be as short as 22-23 days if she manages to stay out of trouble while in there. A Travis County lawyer (also a colleague, law school classmate, and friend) filed a petition to remove her from office, citing a Texas statute allowing removal of a district attorney for intoxication. The County Attorney’s office has now filed suit under that statute to seek Lehmberg’s removal, and a group of Austin attorneys has filed a “Friends of Rosemary” memorandum opposing her removal.

My first thought upon hearing about the memorandum in Lehmberg’s support was a sense that, as a non-practicing but still-licensed attorney, I am somewhat on the sidelines of this debacle. The district attorney is elected by all the voters of Travis County, though, not just the attorneys who vote (even if the attorneys are usually the only ones who closely follow DA and judicial elections.) This affects me and every other individual in this county, even if I will never professionally deal with Lehmberg or her office. I understand the arguments in favor of Lehmberg remaining in office. Considering all of the factors at play, I’m not entirely happy to say this, but I agree that she should go. I think it would be better for her to resign, but the chess pieces are in place now, so I guess we’ll see what happens.

To be clear, I have one reason for this position: public safety. I do not care if the district attorney was drinking alcohol per se. I do not care what a public servant does in their private time, except when it directly threatens the safety of others. Driving while (apparently, very) intoxicated is a direct threat to public safety. The end (of my position statement.)

Here is a bit of a play-by-play of what has happened so far.

I. THE ARREST

According to a police affidavit, as reported by KXAN, a 911 call at about 10:45 p.m. on Friday, April 12, 2013 reported that a Lexus had been driving in the bike lane and weaving for about a mile on southbound FM 620 in west Austin. Police arrested the driver, DA Rosemary Lehmberg. Her behavior at the police station is sure to be the stuff of legend (the affidavit reportedly described her as “both polite and excited, insulting and cocky.”) (Also, restraints were involved.) She was released on a personal bond at about 7:30 that Saturday morning. Continue reading →

Senator Ted Cruz, Green Party Double Agent?

Posted on March 20, 2013 by wellsdc

More than meets the eye?

Ted Cruz, the Republican freshman senator from Texas, has, to put it lightly, been a colossal embarrassment for our state. I won’t even bother listing his accomplishments in his barely two months in office, but if his goal was to keep himself in the headlines making all Texans look bad, then he is doing a bang-up job.

A recent vote on a seemingly uncontroversial resolution, however, has made me wonder if there is something deeper at work here:

In an unusual move, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) objected last week to a routine Senate resolution commemorating Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week.

Congress passes hundreds of resolutions, meant to commemorate everything from a special awareness week or Little League champions. The resolutions lack any real power of law and are predominantly ceremonial. For example, earlier this month the Senate passed resolutions to mark “World Plumbing Day” and commemorating the three-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake.

In order to keep business moving and not clog the Senate floor, they are normally passed in bulk through a “unanimous consent agreement,” meaning a vote isn’t tallied since both sides agree to it.

But last week, Cruz objected to including the MS Awareness resolution. He was unhappy with a clause in the resolution describing the purpose of the Multiple Sclerosis Coalition, according to a Democratic staffer.

Now, I suppose we should take anything a “Democratic staffer” says with a grain of salt, as it could be anybody from a 16 year-old Senate page to Vice President Joe Biden. Either way, it is unlikely to be someone with first-hand knowledge of the contents of Ted Cruz’s head (that joke is too easy.) We don’t know, based on Politico‘s reporting, what clause the senator found objectionable. I am going to assume that it reads “WHEREAS, kittens are adorable…” Continue reading →

The Bluest County in Texas

Posted on November 7, 2012 by wellsdc

Austin often seems like a blue island in a sea of red. Yesterday, Travis County (which includes Austin) went for President Obama by 60%, according to Fox News. Yes, I’m relying on Fox News’ election returns. Let it never be said that I don’t occasionally slum it online. Of course, the state overall went 57% for Romney. It got me wondering, though, since we vote precinct-by-precinct, county-by-county, and then the winner takes all at the state level, what is the actual Bluest County in Texas?

Starr County, Texas.

Screen capture from foxnews.com

The area has likely been inhabited for 11,000 years. Europeans first arrived there in 1638, when Jacinto García de Sepulveda went looking for Dutch sailors rumored to be on the Gulf coast. That really has nothing to do with yesterday’s election, though.

Starr County went 86% for Barack Obama. Romney drew a paltry 13%. Fox News does not provide a breakdown for other parties, literally lumping them in the “Other” category.

According to the 2011 Census Bureau estimate, 61,715 people live in Starr County. Of those, 95.6% are “of Hispanic or Latino Origin.” A language other than English is spoken in the homes of 96.0% of the county’s residents. The county borders the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The county seat, Rio Grande City, has a population of roughly 13,834 people, and is the birthplace of Lieutenant General (ret.) Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded the coalition ground forces in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004.

The county also seems to have a corruption problem. A former sheriff pleaded guilty to federal drug conspiracy charges in May 2009 and received a 64-month prison sentence. A deputy sheriff was charged with federal bribery, extortion, and drug charges in July 2012.

That’s all I’ve got. I just thought it was interesting.

Photo credit: Screen capture from foxnews.com.

An Open Letter to Cicurina venii, the $15 Million Spider

Posted on September 18, 2012 by wellsdc

Because I find spiders terrifying, here’s an adorable slow loris

Dear Cicurina venii,

May I call you by your scientific name, or do you prefer your more common name, the Braken Bat Cave meshweaver?

At any rate, I have never made a secret of the fact that I do not much like your kind (meaning spiders), as I tend to find you creepy. I know that you and most of your cousins here in Texas mean us no harm, and that it’s just the black widows and brown recluses that pose any real danger to us humans. You spiders have just always rubbed me the wrong way. I suppose it is because of that time in kindergarten when I reached out my hand to lean on a wall at recess and felt something soft and furry, only to discover a large (relative to my 6 year-old size) wolf spider at my fingertip. I know that’s not your fault, and I know it’s not fair to blame an entire order of arachnids for a mild youthful scare, so I apologize for the aspersions I have cast on your kind over the years.

I write to you now, in fact, to welcome you back to the public eye. I read that you recently reappeared after an absence of more than a decade, showing up at a construction site in San Antonio. In fact, no one even knew you existed until 1980, and no one saw you again until a few weeks ago. You’ve been on the endangered species list since 2000. This means that your sudden and unexpected appearance stopped a highway construction project in its tracks. It sounds like you’ve got quite a home for yourself there in northwest San Antonio, with a whole network of caves. The news says that you’re blind, so I suppose you can’t quite appreciate how much the city has changed around you since the last time people saw you.

I hope that we can find a way to live together. You should know that you’ve made a lot of people angry. They’re really angry with the government for enforcing the laws protecting you as an endangered species, but you get caught in the crossfire, and that’s too bad. I know you just want to live down there in your cave, scurrying around doing spider stuff. You didn’t ask for this kind of attention, but unfortunately, you’ve got it.

For my part, I want to thank you for reminding us all that protecting endangered species isn’t just about protecting cute pandas and majestic eagles. It is also about protecting blind, cave-dwelling, eight-legged beasts like you. You may terrify me, even if you are less than an inch long, but you ought to have a chance to use this planet along with the rest of us.

Photo credit: ‘Nycticebus coucang 003’ by David Haring / Duke Lemur Center (email) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Rice University and that Place that Sells Chicken

Posted on September 10, 2012 by wellsdc

I just learned from an alert friend that Rice University, of which I am a proud alumnus, has an at-least-somewhat cozy relationship with The Chicken Restaurant That Shall Not Be Named. (That’s too wordy, on second thought. I’m referring to Chick-Fil-A.) As of this afternoon, the Rice Athletic Department lists Chick-Fil-A as a “Preferred Restaurant Partner.”

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I couldn’t find much else about a relationship between Rice and Chick-Fil-A, except one indication, via student reviews of campus food, that Chick-Fil-A is available on campus.

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This is what roughly five minutes of Googling revealed, anyway.

My involvement as an alumnus with Rice is pretty minimal. I send money now and then, but I’m not a “patron,” “booster,” or “donor,” so much as I am the guy who pretends to have a forty year-old rotary phone whenever the Rice Development Office calls. Nonetheless, I am not thrilled in the least with the school’s affiliation with Chick-Fil-A, which, as far as I am concerned, goes against everything I learned about tolerance and inclusion while a student at Rice. I matriculated at Rice as a spoiled, entitled, sheltered little shit whose life experiences mostly involved fellow WASPs. By the time I graduated, I was still a little shit, but my Rice experience allowed me to expand beyond everything else. Rice’s diversity accounted for about 90% of that. (I now know that Rice actually wasn’t all that diverse, but you have to think like 18 year-old me here.) I mean not only cultural, ethnic, racial, or religious diversity, but also diversity of lifestyles.

Rice is a private university. This means that it has considerable discretion to decide with whom it associates. No one disputes that. As a private organization, however, it also has considerable leeway to decide with whom not to associate. Are you listening, President David Leebron and Athletic Director Rick Greenspan?

BONUS: See Culturemap Houston’s guide to non-Chick-Fil-A chicken in Houston.

Time to lay down some Proverbs

Posted on August 23, 2012 by wellsdc

320px-Texas_State_Fair_honey A few weeks ago, a Texas state legislator came up with an alternative to having public school teachers lead their students in prayer, or posting the Ten Commandments over the periodic table, or whatever else it is that people want to do these days. Via the Texas Freedom Network:

In a post on her Facebook page Monday, [Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball] seems to accept the fact that government-sponsored prayer is not allowed in public schools — though students are free to pray in public schools as long as it’s not officially sanctioned by administrators — and she offers an alternative:

I say have a reading out of Proverbs each day in our classrooms.

No, really, she said it. Here’s her full post:

Formal prayer has been taken out of our schools. How about this idea? Read from the book of Proverbs from the Bible. Proverbs is a book of wisdom. Proverbs is in the Holy Scriptures for Christians and Jews. As for other religions — the wisdom won’t do them any harm. This nation was built on Christian and Jewish values and the Bible was actually used in the classrooms in our early days. To toss the very foundation on which our country was built because of political correctness is wrong and we see the results in society today. I say have a reading out of Proverbs each day in our classrooms. What do you think?

Ever mindful that not everyone shares the same faith, Riddle assures all who don’t follow the Bible that “the wisdom” in Proverbs “won’t do them any harm.” See? She’s thought of everything. Except maybe the inevitable avalanche of lawsuits.

I wholeheartedly agree with Rep. Riddle. The Book of Proverbs is full of Bibley goodness, and the children of the state of Texas need to know that far more than they need to know history, or how the human reproductive system works. Let me throw out my suggestion for the first proverb to read, from Proverbs 25:16 (NIV):

If you find honey, eat just enough—
too much of it, and you will vomit.

That bit of wisdom spared me from quite a bit of barfing as a child. With honey-induced vomiting accounting for seventy-one percent of all public school absences [citation needed], Rep. Riddle’s proposal could not come at a better time.

Photo credit: ‘Texas State Fair honey’ by Photo: Andreas Praefcke (Own work (own photograph)) [GFDL or CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Rice University, The Happiest Place on Earth!!!

Posted on August 20, 2012 by wellsdc

320px-Rice_University_-_Rice_statue_with_Lovett_Hall

If Willy’s statue could talk…

Maybe I am overselling it a bit.

The Princeton Review released its big book of rankings recently (h/t Bob), and West Virginia has regained its title as the best school for gaining 25 pounds due solely to beer and having to explain to your parents pictures of yourself naked and fellating an unfamiliar lacrosse team on Tumblr . Okay, that’s what I think “#1 party school means,” but what the hell do I know? I went to Rice.

Rice retained its title as the school with the “happiest students,” which must be a new development in the decade+ since I graduated. I mostly remember a bunch of neurotic nerds, but I was also pretty drunk during that four-year period.

This year’s rankings require registration at the Princeton Review‘s website, but I did find a description of Rice from last year’s announcement of the rankings.

Academics

A sunny and social place to get a prestigious degree, Rice University is Houston’s answer to the Ivy League. Consistently ranked as “one of the top universities of the nation,” Rice maintains a stellar faculty, a “vibrant research program,” and a “diverse selection of courses and departments.”

Okay, good education, but happiest?

Life

Rice University offers “the most amazing balance of serious education and an unbelievably rewarding personal life.” According to most undergraduates, “The college system is the key to life at Rice University,” through which students are assigned to residential communities for all four years of study. The cornerstone of the Rice community, “The ‘Hogwarts style’ housing system creates an intimate place to create lasting friendships, as well as friendly competition between different dorms.”

I graduated from college around the time J.K. Rowling was writing the first Harry Potter book, so the Hogwart’s comparison obviously was not around when I was there. Here’s the thing: Hogwart’s was not a happy place.

Student Body

While they look like a bunch of “outgoing, down-to-earth kids,” students reveal, “Everyone at Rice is, in some way, a nerd.” At this “geek chic” school, “Regardless of your interest and no matter how nerdy it might be now, you’ll definitely find someone else who shares your passion.”

***

“Rice genuinely has a diverse community that accepts people of all backgrounds.” Nonetheless, Rice students do share some common traits, generally described as “liberal for Texas,” low-key, and “good natured.” While most undergraduates are “studious,” they’re not overly serious. The typical student “rolls out of bed in a t-shirt” and is “willing to help you out in times of need.”

I think this is the key. The single most important thing uniting Rice undergrads, in my experience, was that we were all nerds in high school, and we all came to Rice to be among our own people. The Rice University of the 1990’s was a sociological experiment run amok: take 2,600-2,700 people aged 18-22, almost all of whom spent their high school years studying, at debate tournaments, or playing 8-bit video games, turn them loose on a campus in the middle of America’s fourth-largest city with no adult supervision, and see what happens. I could tell you tales of wildness, but my memory is fuzzy.

The Rice University Class of 2017 started classes today, as it happens. I wish them well. This is a different world (old-school TV pun intended) than the one in which I attended college. I have heard that the administration is more cautious, and that today’s students may not have the opportunity to learn firsthand that releasing twenty pounds of live crickets inside another dorm building is not, in fact, a funny prank. The old Wiess Commons is no longer standing, so there is no obvious place to post cutouts of German porn magazines in preparation for Night of Decadence. Still, I have no doubt that this new crop of kids will let their freak flags fly proudly.

To the students of Edgar Odell Lovett College, I have two bits of wisdom to share:

1. No matter how many times they paint the bathroom walls in the Commons, Cobb will still suck.

2. Rah rah, fuck.

Photo credit: ‘Rice University – Rice statue with Lovett Hall’ by Daderot (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

“The pastures of plenty are burning by the sea”

Posted on June 26, 2012 by wellsdc

Texas had the worst drought in its history in 2011, and it ain’t getting any better.

If you lived in Austin last September, you have some idea how bad the drought got, but not really. If you lived in Bastrop or Steiner Ranch at the time, you lived it.

BuzzFeed published a photoset a few days ago that everyone should see:

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Coyote pups, only a few weeks of age, come to the dying stock tank to drink from the murky water. These predators stand with their legs splayed apart in order to remain on solid ground to prevent becoming mired in the mud.

Photograph by Wyman Meinzer

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In hopes that the rains will come, optimistic farmers sow their wheat crop despite the extreme heat and choking dust that follows the tractors and plows.
Photograph by Wyman Meinzer

The title of this post is from “Homeland Refugee” by the Flatlanders:

The State Board of Education is up for grabs. Here’s why you should care.

Posted on May 29, 2012 by wellsdc

Due to some boring political machinations or something, all fifteen seats on Texas’ infamous State Board of Education are up for grabs this year. The SBOE has gone out of its way to embarrass itself, and by extension all Texans, in recent years. Some of the people who want those seats might even be able to find a way to make it worse.

For one thing, many of the Republicans who want seats on the SBOE have all but admitted that they wouldn’t actually do anything if elected:

At least 10 out of 27 Republicans seeking election to the State Board of Education (SBOE), which oversees public education across Texas, say they don’t agree that “it is the government’s responsibility to be sure children are properly educated.” Of 13 Republicans responding to a candidate survey sent out by a collection of religious-right groups, three said they “disagree” with that statement, while another seven said they “strongly disagree.”

Eight Republican candidates in the May 29 SBOE primaries didn’t respond to the survey. Six candidates who are unopposed in their GOP primaries did not get the questionnaire. Just three Republicans affirmed the importance of public education in Texas. The religious-right groups that sponsored the survey (all of which are nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations) didn’t question Democratic candidates.

Maybe “doing nothing” is not the best way to describe it. Doing nothing would be infinitely preferable to what the SBOE has done in recent years.

Another reason to care about this election is because the hijinks of the SBOE has given the Brits just cause to mock us:

Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education from 2007 to 2009, is a “young earth” creationist. He believes the earth is 6,000 years old, that human beings walked with dinosaurs, and that Noah’s Ark had a unique, multi-level construction that allowed it to house every species of animal, including the dinosaurs.

He has a right to his beliefs, but it’s his views on history that are problematic. McLeroy is part of a large and powerful movement determined to impose a thoroughly distorted, ultra-partisan, Christian nationalist version of US history on America’s public school students. And he has scored stunning successes.

Seriously, what are these people thinking?

Photo credit: ‘Museum of Lincolnshire Life, Lincoln, England – DSCF1726’ by Green Lane (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cryptic Philosopher

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