The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 93, Ed. 1 Sunday, April 5, 2009 Page: 4 of 14
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■
OPINION
4\
THE BAYIWN SUN
Sunday. April 5,2009
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Prickly
thoughts can
ruin sense
of smell
BG Jennings
Baytown
Natalie Whatley resides in
Baytown with her family. Contact
her at ndwhatley@verizon.net
Dave Mathews
Managing Editor
Jay Eshbach
Community member
Jim Finley
former Managing Editor
Luke Hales
Assistant Managing Editor
M.A. Bengtson
Community member
Dave Rogers
Sports Editor
Raymond Martin
Mont Belvieu
WRITE TO US
The Sun welcomes letters of
up to 300 words and guest
columns of up to 500 words.
Guest columns should include
a photo of the writer.
We publish only original
material addressed to The
Baytown Sun bearing the
writer’s signature. An address
and phone number not for
publication should be included.
All letters and guest columns
are subject to editing, and the
THE UPHOLSTER LWK6
FAWUAR...OIMT6MY.
/ SHIRT!
DAVE
McNEELY
MISS YOUR PAPER?
You should receive your
Baytown Sun by 6 a.m. Monday
through Saturday and by 8 a.m.
Sunday. If you do not receive
your paper on time, call (281)
425-8066 by 9 a.m. to ensure
redelivery.
NATALIE
WHATLEY
State
Rick Perry,
Governor
800-845-5789
800-252-9600
Fax:512-463-
1849
Ted Poe,
Dist. 2 Rep.
866-425-6565
866-447-0242
. www.house.
gov/poe
Ron Paul,
Dist. 14 Rep.
202-225-2831
979-230-0000
www.house.
gov/paul
Gene Green,
Dist 29 Rep.
202-225-1688
713-330-0761
281-420-0502
www.house.
' gov/green .
How to reach us
Clifton E. “Cliff” Clements,
Publisher
cliff.clements@baytownsun.com
Dave Mathews
Managing Editor
dave.mathews@baytownsun.com
Sandy Denson, Business Mgr.
sandy.denson@baytownsun.com
Joshua Hart, Circulation Manager
joshua.hart@baytownsun.com
Gordon Gallatin,
Advertising Director
gordon.gallatin@baytownsun.com
NEWSROOM
sunnews@baytownsun.com
Federal
Barack Obama,
President
202-456181
Fax:202-456-2461
president©
whitehouse.gov
Joe Biden,
Vice President
202-456-2324
Fax:202-456-2461
vice.president©
whitehouse.gov
Kay Bailey
Hutchison,
Senator
202-224-5922
713-653-3456
Fax: 202-224-0776
Fax:713-209-3459
hutchison.senate.
gcnttanai.htm
John Cornyn,
Senator
202-224-2934
713572-3337
Fax:202-228-2856
Fax:713-572-3777
comyn.senate.g
ov/contact/index
.litml
I KI.I) HARTMAN
Publisher Emeritus
I050-1074
Differing view
In response to Mr. Kinney's letter
regarding the income drop in Liberty
county because they vote Republican
appears to be farfetched.
President Bush inherited a small reces-
sion when he took office, then he had the
World Trade Center attack. On top of all
that he created 10 million new jobs in his
8 years, that comes to roughly a million
and a quarter average per year. President
Obama has already lost a million and a
quarter jobs his first two months.
The great thing about America is if
where you live doesn't have a lot of
employment you can move somewhere
else. If Mr. Kinney would go to work two
counties over he might find better results.
I recently saw a sign on SH 225 looking
for some workers at $28.00 an hour. That
comes out to $58,240 a year if you only
work 40 hours per week. Now of course
that's with an evil oil company, the com-
pany that responsible for the gas and
diesel, asphalt roads to get you to work
and the shingles on your house. Then
there are little things like most medicines,
clothes, milk jugs, tires, belts, hoses and
R-134 to keep you cool while your dri-
ving, lightweight eye glasses, all plastic
products, and chewing gum. Another
option would be to move to Michigan.
That's a Democratic heaven there. You
have a Democratic governor, a
Democratic State Legislation, Democratic
U.S. senators and a majority Democratic
U.S. house members. You also have 12
percent unemployment, high state taxes, a
state income tax, and most important the
UAW unions, but everybody is liberal and
Democrat and as happy as they could be.
Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain said
it best. "The thing about Liberalism is,
you eventually run out of someone else's
money”
What a colossal overreaction by the
Goose Creek Board. Mr. Berg sounds
much like Chicken Little, the famous
chicken who breathlessly proclaimed the
sky to be falling. To close the school is
not safe-mindedness but irrational fear-
mindedness. The Board admits a) there
is NO current danger and b) their sacred
study is less than purely factual having
employed numerous suppositions. They
have not shown the study to the pipeline
companies who confidently refute news
reports of the study’s premises and con-
clusions. Are we really going to shut the
school without even hearing what the
expert pipeline engineers have to say?
When did the pipeline companies become
so unreliable?
No one is well-served by this error, not
the students now facing greater real dan-
gers in being transported away from their
neighborhoods, not their parents who pay
equal property taxes for unequal access,
not the teachers who feel they are losing
the kids they have loved, not the sur-
rounding property owners whose property
values drop for no good reason, not the
taxpayers who just built three new
schools to address under capacity and
who now unnecessarily are handed ele-
mentary under capacity. This is a bad
decision for the whole community.
I
Books provide insight into
Texas politics, government
Bartoton &un
1301 Memorial Drive, P.O. Box 90
Baytown, Texas 77522
Main: (281) 422-8302
Newsroom: (281) 425-8017
Retail: (281)425-8036
Classified: (281) 425-8008
Circulation: (281)425-8066
Fax: (281)427-1880
E-mail: sunnews@baytownsun.com
Web site: www.baytownsun.com
The Baytown Sun, 46180 is published
daily by The Baytown Sun, 1301
Memorial Drive, P0 Box 90, Baytown
Texas 77522. Periodicals postage paid
at Baytown, Tx.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Board overreacted
White a writing gig such as this
one is loads of fun, there are times
when the thorns of the rose garden
we call life distract me to the point
of having nothing amusing, mean-
ingful, or sarcastic to say.
1 know many don’t like sarcasm,
but like a T-shirt in
my possession says,
“It’s one of the ser-
yfces I offer.” I
can smell irony
miles away, and
have been known to
taunt people. It
doesn’t help that I’m
married to someone
who has the ability to
hold his own in verbal sparring
matches - keeps my skills honed.
But lately, the briers of real life-
cleaning dog snot off the floor (poor
Scooter and his allergies), moun-
tains of laundry, kids’ homework,
attempts at meal planning/grocery
shopping and teen angst - are work-
ing against my creative process. 1
get my best ideas while performing
manual labor and/or worrying about
things over which 1 have no control.
There’s been plenty of that, and . . .
nothing . Well, nothing I should say
out loud - you’d think far less of
me.
As I fold socks. . . OK, socks
aren’t really folded, but you know
what 1 mean. And, raise your hand if
“folding” socks for several people
j makes you nutty. All my guys are
wearing the same size now; some-
EDITORIAL BOARD
Clifton E. “Cliff’ Clements
Editor/Publisher
The people’s governors. The people’s
lawyer. The people s water.
Those are the subjects of three recent
books published by the presses of the
state’s two most prestigious public univer-
sities.
“The Power of die Texas Governor
Connally to Bush” explores how the one
woman and six men who immediately
preceded Gov. Rick Perry handled the job.
State Rep. Brian McCall, a thoughtfill
moderate Republican from Plano, turned
his doctoral dissertation at die University
of Texas at Dallas into a book for the
University of Texas Press. McCall, 50, has
served in the Texas House since 1991.
McCall provides a succinct appraisal of
the differing leadership and management
styles of governors over 38 years, from
Democrat John Connally (1963-69)
through Republican George W Bush
(1995-2000).
Between Connally and Bush were
Democrats Preston Smith (1969-73) and
Dolph Briscoe (1973-79), Republican Bill
Clements (1979-83), Democrat Marie
White (1983-87), Clements’ second term
(1987-91), and Democrat Ann Richards
1991-95).
Some say the Texas governor is a weak
position, but some of the people who have
held it dispute that. McCall quotes White
as saying that one of his predecessors,
Allan Shivers, said “I never thought it was
weak. I had all the power 1 needed.”
The book about the people’s lawyer
details major challenges faced by John L.
Hill Jr, one of the most aggressive Texas
attorney generals, from 1973 to 1979.
“John Hill for the State ofTexas: My
Years as Attorney General” outlines some
of the major battles Hill undertook, includ-
ing reforming consumer protections, curb-
ing maverick child care home operations,
fighting corruption in Duval county, and
cleaning up the Houston Ship Channel.
Hill’s first-person account was
researched and written by well-respected
former capital newsman Ernie
Stromberger.
Sadly, Hill died July 9,2007, before the
book was printed by Texas A&M
University Press.
The only person to serve as secretary of
state, attorney general, and chief justice of
the Texas Supreme Court, Hill would have
loved to be included in McCall’s book
Hill ran for governor twice: in 1968,
when he finished sixth in the Democratic
primary, and in 1978, when he unseated
incumbent Briscoe in the Democratic pri-
times it’s difficult to determine the
owners. I’ve heard, “Buy all the
same, and divide them up.” Won’t
work. Some people, I’ll refrain
from naming names, pull theirs off
in the strangest places and miss
having them laundered. That would
leave one person, who provides
99.987% of the family income,
without clean socks. (Yes, I did the
math. And the answer to your burn-
ing question: No, money doesn’t
come with all this fame.) He would-
n’t stand for it. Another well-mean-
ing person said to use a permanent
marker and put initials at the toe.
We weren’t looking ahead or think-
ing of socks when naming our boys.
They all have the initials JLW.
Maybe I could try numbers.
Anyway, I got off on a tangent,
but was about to say that while I
fold socks, and other items for that
matter, some crazy stuff pops into
my head. Most of the time, things
come to me in the form of ques-
tions. If I knew the answers my
mind would rest and allow more
inventive thought, or at the very
least make me feel sane. I’ll provide
below a sampling of what goes on
inside my noggin, but I must warn
you: these are weighty matters.
Will my children ever brush their
teeth without being hounded? And,
do at least a decent job before the ;
| third round? What is that smell in
my son’s room? Why is there soap
smeared all over the shower walls?
Why is the door on the hamster
cage, with an opening large enough (
for the cat to squeeze through, open j
when kids are away at school? Isn’t J
that paper on the kitchen counter ]
the homework we worked on until j
eleven last night? How many days !
can my son wear his contacts with- >
out removing them for cleaning
before a nasty infection, or heaven
forbid, blindness sets in? Who ate
the last Pop-Tart and left the empty
box in the cupboard?
Minor annoyances? Absolutely. I
try not to dwell on them, lest they
become real thorns in my side and
cause me to miss smelling the roses.
Sun reserves the right to
refuse to publish any submis-
sion.
Send signed letters to:
Dave Mathews, The Baytown
Sun, P.O. Box 90, Baytown,
77522; fax them to (281) 427-
1880 or send an e-mail to
sunnews@baytownsun.com.
Items featured on this page
are the views of the persons
identified with each submission
and do not necessarily reflect
the views of The Baytown Sun
or its advertisers.
mary. But he lost a very tight general elec-
tion to Republican Clements.
Stromberger, who had worked as press
secretary for Hill as attorney general, was
campaign press spokesman in the guber-
natorial campaign.
In 1984, Hill was
elected chief justice.
He quit after three
years, and kicked off
an effort calling for
appointment rather
than election of judges.
The people’s water,
and the politics sur-
rounding it, has always
been serious business
in Texas-life-giving,
death-causing, fought over - and recent
drought, growing demand and increased
competition for Texas’ finite and unpre-
dictable supply has produced some huge
political battles.
As with appropriating tax money, the
distribution of water is controversial: who
gets how much, and why; how much
belongs to landowners, under what cir-
cumstances; how much should belong to
the people ofTexas; how much should go
for municipal and industrial use, and irri-
gation; how much stream flow should be
reserved for aquatic life and recreation;
what you can and can’t put into it. All are
in this book.
“Water in Texas: An Introduction,” from
UT Press, was written tty Andrew
Sansom, a man in a position to know.
Sansom helped found what is now the
River Systems Institute at Texas State
University-San Marcos - headquartered at
Aquarena Springs, the headwaters of the
San Marcos River.
An avid canoeist, fisherman, hunter, and
bird-watcher, Sansom knows Texas water
resources - from relatively wet Southeast
Texas, with more than 50 inches of rain a
year, to arid far West Texas, which aver-
ages eight inches a year - sometimes most
of it on one day
Sansom is no stranger to legislative and
bureaucratic wrangling over who gets how
much water in Texas, and why.
In addition to laying out the elements of
what is important in the use, expense, allo-
cation and management of water, Sansom
also helps break up what could be a - par-
don the pun - dry subject with lively
prose and 105 pictures, maps and illustra-
tions.
Contact McNeely at davernc-
neefylll@gmail.com
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Clements, Clifford E. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 93, Ed. 1 Sunday, April 5, 2009, newspaper, April 5, 2009; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1192849/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.