Good Music, Bad Backstories

As we ease up on what would have been Molly's 69th birthday I find myself continually hearing music in my head. Sometimes I hear Marcia Ball's rousing rendition of "Great Balls of Fire," played at Molly's memorial service. Sometimes it's Marcia, sometimes it's Jerry Lee Lewis. I should have known "Great Balls" wasn't about politics, which is probably why Molly asked that it be played at her memorial service: an end run around sadness. I was only mildly surprised to realize what it was really about.

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain
Too much love drives a man insane
You broke my will
But what a thrill
Goodness gracious great balls of fire!

Yeah. 

Moving on six years.

The whole time we shouted and stomped, chanted and cheered for Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte and Mary Gonzales and Judith Zaffirini in the Texas Senate -- part of a small but strong pod of female Democrats who had the courage to stand up to bullying religious zealots -- another song took up residence in my brain. 

 Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

No matter what I did for the rest of the second special session whenever I saw an orange "I Stand With Texas Women," t-shirt I heard that fabulous anthem midway the first act of  Les Miserables. I got so crazy at one point I was passing the lyrics out to anyone who would accept the paper they were printed on. This, I insisted, should be our anthem, only instead of storming staged barricades, women, men and children from all across the state stormed that bully pulp. Both the real and the theatrical revolutionaries made an impression. Demonstrations at the Capitol went viral and made international news.Texas was finally on the map for something other than executions and football.  

Even more recently, as I read about yet another school scare, another homicide/suicide, another hate crime, that extraordinary piece of work by Rodgers and Hammerstein penned for "South Pacific" surfaced. It was excruciating to recognize its 21st-century relevance: 

You've got  to be taught to hate and fear

You've got to be taught from year to year

It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear 

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid 

Of people whose eyes are oddly made

Of people whose skin is a different shade

You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught before it's too late

Before you are six, or seven or eight

To hate all the people your relatives hate

You've got to be carefully taught.

I thought about Molly and how she would have had a way to turn those lines and all the others into a battle cry for political change in a state that often seems to have lost its grip on reality.

I mean, where to start -- with a governor who can't keep straight which border city is in Texas and which one is in Mexico?

A lieutenant governor who (allegedly) drunk-dialed a suburban cop in a failed attempt to intercede on behalf of a relative who (allegedly) failed to pay for $57 worth of groceries?

A candidate for state comptroller who can't pronounce the office he seeks but wants to abolish the IRS, which he can pronounce?

A smirking junior U.S. senator who bogarts media attention with the kind of lunatic enthusiasm usually associated with Donald Trump?

A state representative who sponsors one of the nation's most draconian anti-abortion bills, but then, in public hearings and on the House floor, can't answer a single question about the bill's contents?

Or last, but by no means least,  a U.S. representative who famously argued  that "kids don't need to learn about (sex), because "mankind has existed for a pretty long time without anyone ever having to give a sex-ed lesson to anybody." He clearly missed the memo about Texas having the nation's fourth highest teen pregnancy rate AND the highest repeat teen pregnancy rate.

Worse yet, this same right-wing twerp -- through his well-honed facility for mismanaging accurate information -- has thrust the United States into a diplomatic boondoggle. In a domestic news clip picked up and broadcast in strife-torn Egypt, the one and (thank God) only Rep. Louis Gohmert did something precious few of us have been able to achieve in Texas: Egyptians took one of his anti-Obama diatribes seriously. As a result a dissident faction now believes that Obama is in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood.Who ever in the world could envision Gohmert influencing political action halfway around the world. Who? How?

I guess this is just a long-winded way of saying "You're six years gone, Mol, and those of us who knew your voice still miss your special gift for stirring it up."

Mary Tyler "Molly" Ivins:  August 30, 1944 – January 31, 2007

Something's Happening Here; What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear

Almost 50 years ago a prescient Buffalo Springfield recording captured a mood that's creeping across the country today. That spirit is alive in Texas, Missouri, California, Oklahoma -- well, almost anywhere reactionary forces are doing their best to stifle dissent, silence women's voices and demonize those who follow the beat of the different drummer. 

And once again, as we ease up on Molly's Aug. 30 birthdate I pine for her voice, knowing she would have a better way of dealing with oday's swirl of events.

I managed to stave off apoplexy while reading a David Brooks column a while back, excoriating Edward Snowden, who spilled the beans on wholesale government-sanctioned information gathering. As was the case with Bradley Manning, his biggest crime seems to have been embarrassing the government, not divulging state secrets -- at least as far as we know. Reading Brooks column moved me to trot out a t-shirt I received a couple of years ago as a bonus for subscribing to The Nation. It said, simply, "Secrecy Breeds Tyranny."

By now there can't be anyone unfamiliar with the tragic Sanford, Florida death of Trayvon Martin -- or other black men who have been fatally wounded by law enforcement officers since then.  But lest we forget, abuse at the hands of those ostensibly designed to serve and protect is not reserved exclusively for black men -- even though it often seems that way. 

What we have done to our own boggles the mind -- and we didn't need Bradley Manning or Anthony Snowden to tell us about some of the cases that have surfaced.

Take the case of Daniel Chong, a California university student who almost died in police custody last year. He recently won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Agency, but how will he recover psychologically from being handcuffed in a federal holding cell for nearly five days without food or water -- and spending time in intensive care as a result? 

Will Trayvon Martin's parents get anything close to that?

Chong was detained in the spring of last year in conjunction with a San Diego drug raid. After it was determined that he was not involved in illicit activity, a member of the task force that conducted the raid put him in a cell and apparently forgot about him. For days. By the time he was found he was suffering from severe dehydration, muscle deterioration, hallucinations, liver and kidney failure, and extremely high levels of sodium. One of his attorneys was quoted as saying, “What happened to Daniel Chong should never happen to any human being on the face of the planet.” 

He might never be the same, but at least he's alive to tell the tale.

Marissa Alexander is also alive, but, one might ask, so what? Until her recent Florida (again!) Marissa Alexander had no criminal record, no history of violence and no brushes with the law before she fired a warning shot into a wall in response to an advancing abusive husband.

Oh, did I omit the part about him being at her house despite the fact that she had a restraining order?

She received a  20-year sentence  for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. . He's still walking around loose. A judge dismissed her "stand your ground" claim, noting that she could have run back into the house to escape her husband. Instead she got a gun. Alexander, obviously erroneously anticipating a rational outcome,  rejected a plea deal that would have resulted in a three-year prison sentence and chose a jury trial. It deliberated 12 minutes before convicting her. After, all the judge said, she could have run.

We have a war of terror right here.  We can talk big game about protecting other countries from tyranny, but we destroy civilian lives in a tyrannical war against women, the poor and ethnic minorities. We lie about the number of innocents we kill in the name of an invisible enemy called "terror," but we ignore the terror blacks, browns, gays and poor whites experience daily.

We continue to trot out tired iconic has-beens like Rudy Giuliani, whose post 9/11 rhetoric has long since lost its potency, to persuade us that the war on you-know-what forces us to be ever vigilant. We conjure up scary color-coded "threat levels" that keep otherwise sensible citizens just where a manipulative government wants us: frightened.So we lose focus on what's happening under our local noses.

So allow me to trot out a notion I fully support: eternal vigilance is still the price of freedom, but not at the expense of constitutional guarantees; not at the expense of having conversations, emails and personal correspondence of  every Tom, Dick and Henrietta exposed to government scrutiny in the name of protecting us from terrorism; not with the passage of inflexible draconian laws that  turn around and bite civil rights on the butt; not at the expense of keeping state governments out of women's vaginas.

So now I'm back to the closing stanza of "For What It's Worth," the Buffalo Springfield song that became an antiwar anthem in the 1960s:

                  Paranoia strikes deep 

                  Into your life it will creep 

                  It starts when you're always afraid  

                 You step out of line, 

                 The man come and take you away 

They took Manning away and rigged his courts martial so only dribs and drabs of the bizarre proceedings against him could reach us. The Justice Department might or might not take a second look at George Zimmerman's pathetic gun love. A benevolent justice system might eventually show Marissa Alexander justice. Daniel Chong might be OK, and yes, the $4 million might help, but it's gonna take a while..

Lots of maybes, lots of mights. 

It remains to be seen what will happen them all, just as it remains to be seen what's really happening here, 'cause what it is ain't exactly clear.

Texas Politics: Best Theater In Town

After listening to almost 10 hours of debate centered on the highly dubious merits of the Texas legislature's superstupid so-called 'abortion' bill (HB2), all exchanges, pro and con, boiled down to a vote passing the bill. Opponents, all Democrats, just didn't have the numbers, and moderate Republicans, cowed by the Tea Party right-wing crazies among them, chickened out.

But that was just the beginning. What happened in the 30 minutes after the votes were tallied and was more uplifting than most of the performances on the House floor. Mind you, here were several magical moments throughout the day.  

Rep. Senfronia Thompson, the legislature's no-nonsense grand dame, delivered a graphic description of what will happen to Texas women as a result of this draconian bill (that will severely limit access to a range of medical services in addition to abortion). With a coat hanger in one hand and a scary-long knitting needle in the other, she made clear what happens in back-alley abortions -- and insisted that these would be the likely implements used for terminating an unwanted pregnancy due to rape or incest (the bill makes no provision for allowing termination of a pregnancy after 20 weeks). She asked that an amendment to the bill be considered. It would make an exception for rape and/or incest.

It was voted down.

In a powerful proposal delivered in old-school oratorical style,  Rep. Sylvester Turner  promised in to vote for the bill if a provision were added to fund post-natal and medical care for mother and child.

 His amendment was voted down.

Rep. Dawnna Dukes gently and somberly proposed an amendment that would fund education for children born of unwanted pregnancies. Her amendment was also voted down-- but not before some neophyte whippersnapper had the temerity to challenge Dukes' motivation for advancing the amendment in the first place. What followed was a scene straight from a TV drama series. Dukes fixed a steely gaze on the offending legislator and issued a smackdown worthy  of  "The West Wing." Her voice dropped half of an octave. When she finished dusting the floor with a scathing indictment of his character for his seeming to challenge hers, she stepped back from the microphone and over to his desk where she completed her reprimand. A brace of empty suits surrounded the two,  but none -- I suspect wisely -- interfered.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Joe Strauss fluctuated between looking frustrated, dismayed and bewildered, bless his heart.

Interspersed with this day-long drama were occasional rejoinders from the bill's ostensible sponsor: Rep. Jodie Laubenberg. She called to mind one of Molly Ivins' more notorious quotes. In characterizing a Texas politico, Molly once wrote, "If  his IQ slipped any lower, you'd have to water him twice a day."  Enter Rep. Laubenberg, bless her heart too. I can't begin to imagine how or why she became the bill's front-and-center spokestwit. Barely able to articulate a compound sentence, she couldn't defend "her" bill with anything vaguely resembling informed authority. (This is the person who famously believed a rape kit was the appropriate methodology for eliminating the probability of pregnancy; she had no idea its sole purpose was to acquire a perp's  DNA.)

Bet whoever put her up to it won't make that mistake again.

OK. So now you have a snapshot of the activity before the miserable vote took place.  What happened after the session ended is the wonderful part of the day and what made the end result tolerable. Hundreds of men and women of all shapes, ages, sizes, ethnicities and manner of dress descended on the second floor outside the House chamber, shouts of "Shame On You!" erupted among Texans who lined stairwells and crowded the gallery just outside the House doors. Stone-faced state troopers promptly cordoned off access.  The  mass of people forced some of the bill's supporters to skitter down side stairs like so many fleeing rodents.

And then...and then...AND THEN: some of the true heroes of the day began to emerge. Angry jeers became cheers: "THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU" we yelled. Somewhere a drum and a tambourine appeared, its players keeping rhythm. There they were: representatives Sephronia Thompson, Rodney Allen, Jessica Ferrar, Mary Gonzales, Elliott Naishtat, Helen Giddings,  Garnet Coleman, Jose Menendez. Despite the best efforts of   remarkably calm fire marshals, supporters crowded them, reaching past a line of troopers who tried to cordon off a pathway from the house floor to the rotunda. The sea of phone cameras at the end of upstretched arms was almost sculptural. Others, including Dukes, were sequestered in a press conference.

And all of a sudden, it was over. The second session of the 83rd convocation of the Texas State Legislature had run its course. The crowd dispersed. The troopers scattered. The fire marshall accepted a Gerber daisy.

Now we wait to see if this enthusiasm can translate into getting out the vote.

In all, it was a bad news/good news day.

HB2, which will be challenged six ways from Sunday, was, for the time being, en route to becoming law. As for the  good news, the monomaniacal governor who insisted that the million-dollar special session be convened for the sole purpose of passing this chickenshit bill, announced that he will not run for governor again.

My fervent hope is that he takes his limited abilities onto the presidential campaign trail in

2016, since Michele Bachmann isn't likely to run. Every campaign needs a court jester along the way.


Tickets to this theater production,  like the one just ended, are free.

Off We Go, Into the Wild Blue Yonder...

I'm. notorious for not being able to recognize famous people -- oh I could recognize the current or any of the recent past presidents, or maybe a celebrity or two should they be Bono in those dark blue glasses, Whoopi in her dreads or Charles Osgood in his signature bow tie. But for the most part, nada.

Apropos of that deficiency, I can't remember when I've wished so much that Molly was around to hear a story of mine (instead of it usually being the other way 'round) as I did that day in April when I boarded my flight from Austin to Newark. Because I always get an aisle seat, I usually wait until the last minute to board, giving time for seatmates to settle in and avoiding all that nonsense of waiting while type A types toggle and shove their beleaguered suitcases into overheard compartments. This time my delayed boarding paid off.  Big time.  Here's what happened:

As I snail-walked behind the still lined-up passengers, I met the eyes of a familiar oval-round face with snow white hair and a receding hair line. But from familiar how, from where? It made me crazier and crazier as I got nearer and nearer, unable to assign name to visage.

And then it hit me. "Excuse me," I said with a smile, "but who was the first person to tell you you look exactly like John Cornyn?" He smiled back and said, "My mother."

Paygodammdirt.

"Good seeing, you senator," I said as I moved on. Once in my 26D seat, seat belt fastened, electronic devices off, seat in upright and tray in stowed and locked in position, I whipped out my trusty little notebook. Even though long retired from the newsroom, I still carry one with me. Never know when you're gonna encounter a senator with whom you have absolutely nothing in common on a three-hour flight. Gotta make the best possible use of the time without risking mid-air arrest which requires having the patience to wait until you're at a cruising altitude of 32,000 feet. Notes. Must have notes.

With notes scribbled and committed to memory, down the aisle I went. It was a reasonable safe gambit: Cornyn had an aisle bulkhead  seat, immediately behind first class, and had had the whole row to himself.  Immediately across from the good senator was an Amazonian type dressed way too conspicuously inconspicuously not to have been either an air marshal ("marshallette"?) or a badly disguised member of the security team.  She too had the entire row. Immediately behind her sat a very muscular young man with almost no neck who was surely there on the senator's protective behalf. He watched me suspiciously, and with fairly good reason.

No matter. I was not there to do harm or make a fuss -- only to tell my senator three things.  As I approached, Senator Cornyn apparently sensed my presence because he looked up.

Mission accomplished: eye contact.

Pardon me senator," I said. "I apologize for disturbing you, but this is as close as I'll ever get to you in real life, and since we wouldn't agree on anything other than the fact that we're on the same plane headed for the same destination, I just wanted to say three things to you."

A thinly veiled look if displeasure came over him as he replied, "Well, I'm trying to take a nap here."
I answered with the hang-dog look familiar to any beagle owner: "I know, and I do apologize,," I said, "but since I'm a constituent and I help pay your salary I only need two minutes of your time to say one, I think Guantanamo should be closed immediately; two, torture is wrong now, always has been, always will be; and three, automatic weapons belong only in the hands of police officers and military personnel. -- Oh and one more thing: I think Ted Cruz is an asshole, and you shouldn't lower yourself to his level."
Let me pause here long enough to say that even when he is distorting facts to the breaking point, John Cornyn has always comported himself in a very Southern Gentlemanly kind of way. So I give him props for being soft-spoken and polite even as he tap dances on what passes for reality in most quarters. Plus, he didn't summon his bodyguard to march me back to my seat.

The senator looked momentarily startled, doubtless taken aback by my genteel. ladylike language, and asked, "What did you say?" As I began to repeat my three-points, " he said, "No, the last part." And I repeated it, leaning in a little closer to his left ear. "I think Ted Cruz is an asshole, and you shouldn't lower yourself to his level."

I swear I thought he smiled as he said "I have no comment." To which I replied,"Nor should you, sir and thank you for your time," and hightailed it back to 26D.

I'd like to think Molly would have been pleased.

I for sure know I was pleased not to have uniformed personnel waiting when I emerged from the walkway into Newark International. In heading toward baggage claim I only looked back once. No one was tailing me. The senator, the bodyguard and the Amazon were long gone.