TX DPS Agents Guarding State Senate Chamber Must All Be Suffering ‘Time-Of-Month’...

... What else could explain their confiscation of tampons from women entering the state Senate gallery? I mean, it's not as if they're protecting public safety; if they were, they'd be confiscating guns instead... oh, wait, if you have a CHP you can carry your piece right into the gallery. For a moment I mistakenly thought we were in the State of Sanity...

Bribe for
TX Senator?

If all those agents are in such desperate need of tampons, surely it would be a kindness on our part to send them a few, preferably for free (though I'll leave that up to you), preferably unused (though that, too, is optional).

Gift-wrapping is unnecessary. Indeed, the male senators would probably prefer your donation not be made in public (which may be a good reason for you to do exactly that...)

Texas GOP State Legislator: The Solution To Guns In Schools Is More Guns In Schools, And Teachers Shooting Students Bearing Guns

That tumbling noise you just heard was my late father, a secondary school educator and former Navy gunnery officer in W.W. II, rolling over in his grave. The provocation for his spinning was probably this bill introduced in the Texas Lege, probably by legislators like this one. From Catherine Thompson at TPM:

Texas Aggie pistol

Legislation filed last week in Texas would allow teachers to use deadly force in order to protect school property, the Houston Chronicle reported.

State Rep. Dan Flynn (R), who's previously fought to roll back concealed handgun license requirements, filed the Teacher's Protection Act authorizing educators to use deadly force to protect themselves or another person on school grounds.

The bill would also authorize the use of deadly force to protect school property and shield any teacher who uses deadly force from prosecution should they cause injury or death.

Texas law already offers immunity from discipline to teachers who use "reasonable" force against a student, according to the Chronicle. State law also allows any adult to carry a firearm in a school with the principal's permission.

...

My father knew firsthand the most likely result of introducing guns into the school environment: once, using his Navy training, he disarmed a mentally disturbed girl who brought a loaded gun to school with the intention to shoot (at least) the principal. She got as far as the administrative offices before my father spotted the outline of her gun in a coat pocket.

Lest you make some invalid assumptions about him, Dad was not shy about guns. In his old age, he owned a rifle for hunting and a shotgun to display in the presence of the occasional burglar who sought entry to his trailer. The weapons with which he had the greatest familiarity 40 years or so earlier were mounted on a W.W. II troop landing ship on which he was the fire control officer; some of those guns were large enough that a man could theoretically crawl inside. (A woman could as well, but no woman would be that much of a damned fool.)

With all that background, training and experience, Dad was utterly determined to keep guns out of the public schools in Texas. I don't know if he testified about such matters to the Texas Lege, but he appeared before legislative committees quite a few times about other matters, so I assume he spoke to them about concealed-carry guns as well. If Dad were alive now, his views on guns would be very unpopular in his home state.

It is already hard enough to capture the attention of intelligent, well-prepared, recently graduated schoolteachers who might want to work in what anyone smarter than a fish would understand is a difficult and sometimes dangerous position at any wage, let alone poverty wages. Compelling teachers to be responsible for firearms in their classrooms, for preventing felony theft, for using deadly force against students, is too damned idiotic even to contemplate in the Texas Lege chambers, let alone in real life in actual schoolrooms full of hormone-saturated pre-adults. But I've often said that Republicans are too dumb for words...

Missing Molly

At random intervals I read the ACLU Blog of Rights just to see what un-American absurdities the evil-doers are up to lately, and what the ACLU is doing about it. Frequently enough, I whip out my checkbook and send them a small token of my appreciation... never very much at a time, because I haven't got money to spend freely, but maybe as much as, say, two movie tickets at a downtown cinema in a real city (yes, Houston counts).

This time, I didn't reach for my checkbook because I've done that recently. But as always, I learned some things. Take a look at this post called Hamas, Twitter and the First Amendment: I learned something from that, something about how our draconian post-9/11 laws end up criminalizing speech for its content, and how that provides opportunities for an org like "Christians United for Israel" (sorry, no link from here) an opportunity to attempt to sue Twitter off the face of the Earth. Did you know Twitter is not considered a "common carrier" under law? And they are being accused of furnishing "communications equipment" (i.e., some unspecified servers and comm links half a planet away) to Hamas... along with much of the rest of the planet, too, mostly uncontroversially. The case is still underway. The post's author, ACLU's Gabe Rottman, sheds light on why this should make the hairs on the back of our necks stand on end. I admit it... I scratched the back of my neck. It's scary stuff. There's other scary stuff on the ACLU blog; there always is, and none of it is exaggerated; I'm always scared when I read it.

Molly Ivins in Good Times

But an old man's mind wanders, and mine wandered to the late great Molly Ivins. If Molly ever wrote a column or spoke a sentence I didn't like (and often enough laugh at), I never saw that column or heard that sentence. Molly was one of my genuine heroes. She still is, almost six years after her passing away.

One of her funniest moments was her appearance in a movie called The Dildo Diaries, from which someone has kindly excerpted the interview with Molly about an episode in the Texas Legislature... why am I wasting your time tapping this, when I can just show you the video (NSFW!)...



Aside: Rep. Danburg, in the video, was my State Representative at one time. I wish her well, whatever she's up to now!