Imagine if a study found that jaw-dropping numbers of Texas math students had no clue about multiplication. SWAT teams of experts would be dispatched. Heads would roll. State-assigned campus masters would arrive by air, by sea, by pack mule. We can’t have our children ignorant of multiplication. That is, unless it’s human multiplication: ovum, sperm,…
In golf, it’s a gimme. In hoops, it’s a slam dunk. In baseball, it’s a gopher pitch. Each is a can’t-miss opportunity. Don’t look now, but Texas has a $550 million gimme putt set up near the cup. And — is that a fairway wood Rick Perry has pulled out, with Republican cohorts saying, “Knock…
It almost makes me want to buy a cupcake for the cause. Pursuant to the Democrats’ sweep of Congress and now the new face in the White House, the “abstinence-only” movement is on its own. When dominant in Washington, Republicans couldn’t find extra money to devote to cleaner water, security-exposed ports or levees that worked.…
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s rhetorical styling is as silly and annoying as that guy in the park wearing whiteface, a turtleneck, and rappelling on an invisible rope. Abbott is miming for an audience, in this case for the court. Abbott can’t admit what lawmakers clearly wanted when they imposed a “moment of silence” on…
Thursday, February 19, 2009 Two stories from the This Changes Everything Department: * Blackwater Security Worldwide Inc., which has run up a portfolio of atrocities under contract in Iraq, has changed its name to Xe. (Pronounced “Z.”) * Meanwhile the Republican Party, having unashamedly run up debt for eight years, has renamed itself the Prudence Party. Members…
It shouldn’t take a Ph.D like David Berliner to tell us what’s wrong with the way we do accountability in schools. He sees parallels in baseball, too, and he’s no Joe Dimaggio. Sporting analogy: When you put too much emphasis on home runs, he points out, people strike out more. When you put too much…
It has the look of a full-length action thriller, and in this case, “full-length” understates it by a bunch. The sweaty man, two arms around the bulging briefcase, steals away in the dark of night, his necktie swinging. Having evaded security, he hustles off, panting. Home free. But wait. The camera zooms in on a…