SLAMPO AND THE GOVERNOR

I read Slampo's blog often. He's funny and he comes from the same town as I do (although it ain't by far the town he and I grew up in!) and we share many political insights and observations. He's far more astute than I am (like Seinfeld and Twain and other observers of human behavior, he "sees" things in ordinary life that need commentary that most of us see but do not put 2 +2 together) and he has a very quick wit. Or perhaps he has a very slow wit and is good at saving up those slow witty thoughts and compiling them in posts.

So go here, to be highly amused and educated at the same time regarding the Democratic candidate debates this week "watched by perhaps dozens of voters across Texas". http://slamposplace.blogspot.com/2010/02/shami-white-sleepy-time-with-mexican.html

Slampo hits some other funny high notes in his review regarding comments by hair products magnate and Quaker/Muslim candidate Farouk Shami, noting that one should be able to at least pronounce moratorium before one wants one on executions. Slampo also opines regarding the, and the quite unusual "day without sunshine" quote by Shami here:

"The one indisputable Shami-esque moment came when the hair-care magnate, in answering some question on border control, said––and we believe he was grinning wildly when he did––"Without Mexicans it would be like a day without sunshine." (By which he meant, if we can interpret: "A day without Mexicans--that is, people from Mexico, as opposed to Mexican Americans--is like a day without cheap, easily exploitable labor.")"

Slampo is a funny boy.

In any event, read the posts at his site for the past couple of months on the Governor's race, starting with this most excellent review of the debate this week between the shiny-coiffed long shot Farouk Shami and former Houston mayor Bill White.



My mom just loves Bill White. She's just ready for him to go on and run against Obama and just forget all this foolishness about being Governor. She's lived in Houston sixty years, since moving there from East Texas with my father as soon as high school and the military would let them. And they never looked back to East Texas as a place to live, once living in Houston. Like many others from East Texas, they became Houston. And for several decades, Houston was them.



And out of all of the mayors, good and bad, that Houston has had since the folks moved there, she just loves her some Bill White and thinks he is the first good mayor Houston has had, probably since Fred Hofeinz.



It's unfortunate that a guy like Bill White gets term limited from his mayoral spot, where at least my mom thinks he was doing some good.



Things need changing in this state, drastically in some regards. Although I agree with a lot of what Perry has done the last decade, our educational systems are in deep need of overhaul and massive cash infusion. Our children are our most precious asset and we're paying teachers nothing. They need to be making double what they are making, and the testing laws changed to allow schools to teach and not test. Montessori does, and quite well. My youngest is not even being taught how to write cursively, because that time is needed for TAKS test practice.



Our criminal justice system is holding the line and despite the problems inherent in policing and incarcerating mankind, we do a damn good job in this state with the dedication of thousands who deal with the scum for the rest of us.



We've got other problems, Lord knows. So does everywhere else. All things considered, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

If I could live anywhere in the State, I'd likely want to be living my days in Port Aransas near the beach with a small cottage up in Central or East Texas somewheres so that I'd have a permanent retreat from the beach and a hurricane hideaway where family photos and the like could be kept, safe from the always possibility of raging waters.