As reported, of the top fourteen cities, public schools with more than 50 percent dropout rate are the following: second, El Paso (88 percent); fourth, Dallas, San Antonio (75 percent); sixth, Houston (72 percent); tenth, Austin (60 percent); and thirteenth, Fort Worth (54 percent) (1996 research).
It should also be known that the governor of Texas is not like other governors. She/he has no power aside from signing or vetoing bills and nominating people for state boards and commissions.
The governor doesn’t have a cabinet. He doesn’t write the budget. The governorship is mainly ceremonial. The lieutenant governor presides over the state senate, chairs the board that writes the budget, and is more powerful than the governor, according to Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker.
As Begala sums up, “The Texas governor can provide a moral example, and Bush loves to give pious, pontification lectures about just how moral he is. One of W’s favorite applause lines is that he will ‘restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office.’
“When I first heard it, I figured he was referring to the terrible lack of integrity his father showed by lying to the country about his role in the Iran Contra affair. [sic] But then my Bushie friends told me he was referring to the fact that President Bill Clinton had an affair and lied about it. Now, I think having an [sic] affair and lying about it is wrong. But I also think selling deadly missiles to the Ayatollah and lying about it is wrong.”
Oh yes, President George W. Bush, our education president. Right. I think I need to take two Extra Strength Tylenol.
David A. Hancock
Chester
Science Teacher Free to Experiment with Ideas
To the editor:
I appreciate Steven Goden’s letter (The Sun Press, June 28) that states, “Science teacher fails at logic, open-mindedness [sic].” It definitely stimulated some reflective thinking.
I will simply say that when it comes to political and educational philosophy, I have a penchant to be ostentatious and pedantic. I think there is no direct correlation between political and scientific thinking (except for politics in education.) [sic]
I also think that when it comes to science, I do possess logic, reason, and open-mindedness. Just ask any of my five thousand students whom I have attempted to teach and inspire during the past thirty-three years.
Again, we all have opinions, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with opinionated, biased, demagogic diatribes when it comes to politics, education, and philosophy.
In response to the comment about Texas governors Ann Richards and Mark White, they had a more cooperative legislature as Democrats than George W. Bush when education reforms were passed and implemented, to the best of my knowledge. If I made a gaffe in facts, I stand corrected.
If Goden has any doubts about my professional ethics or teaching, he may come and visit anytime.
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
Republicans Prove Point
Donald Nichols’s “disgusting letter” to the editor responding to David Lange’s “disgusting column” reminds me of John Stuart Mill: “Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people—it is true that most stupid people are conservative.”
I was going to stop with this quote. However, I thought of Maggie Kuhn’s quote, “Speak your mind even if your voice shakes.”
Donald Nichols and his servile minions should ruminate on the following to elicit some cognitive dissonance, hopefully.
Don’t believe everything you think. Question reality. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Liberals treat dogs like people, while conservatives treat people like dogs. If conservatives are so patriotic, why do they keep sending our jobs overseas?
I think, therefore I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh. Give Bush an inch, and he thinks he’s a ruler. Somewhere in Texas, there’s a village missing an idiot. Support the troops: impeach Bush. Vote Democratic: The a—— you save may be your own. Eat tainted meat, breathe poison air, drink nasty water, help only yourself: vote Republican. Minimum wage for politicians. Nation of sheep ruled by wolves, owned by pigs. If only closed minds came with closed mouths. The problems we face will not be solved by the minds that created them.
“Everyone seems to be hacking away at the branches of evil while no one is striking at the roots” (Thoreau).
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people” (Admiral Hyman Rickover).
“Error of opinion may be tolerated, so long as reason is left free to combat it” (Thomas Jefferson).
OK. So what’s the panacea to our human relationships? Read and think carefully. Are you ready?
We live in a world of events, and our lives are affected by these events because of the way we see them. This is also true of human beings. People are to us the way we perceive them. Our perceptions are based on qualities that we are not happy with in ourselves—qualities that we use as a means of making a judgment.
As long as you see someone as a problem, you must remain in these circumstances, so you can be right about him or her. It’s only when you are willing to allow people to be as they see themselves, without your judgment, that you can free yourself from these circumstances.
Something is missing in today’s dialogue of public policy which tends to escape our logic and reason. Maybe humorist P. J. O’Rourke is trying to tell us in his excellent, insightful libertarian book Parliament of Whores, “that God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.
“Democrats are also the party of government activism,
