Isn’t it nice that all the people who prefer Dallas to Fort Worth choose to live there?
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Today in Texas History – May 9
From the Annals of Folk Art – In 1979, The Orange Show on 2401 Munger Street in Houston was opened to the public. TOS was conceived and built over a period of twenty-five years by Houston postman Jefferson D. McKissack. 1979. McKissack’s interest in oranges began while working as truck driver during the Depression. He developed a strong belief in the benefits of oranges and good nutrition and privately published How You Can Live 100 Years And Still Be Spry in 1960. Beginning in the mid-1950’s, McKissack built the exterior walls of what became TOS as part of his plant nursery on two vacant lots across the street from his bungalow. The real work began in 1962 when McKissack began work on his decades long project to create a folk art masterpiece around the orange theme. McKissack primarily used found objects and relics purchased from junk stores for his creations. Numerous signs and displays convey McKissack’s messages about the miraculous powers of the orange as a pure form of energy that “grows right out of the bloom, protected by the rind.”
McKissack believed that his creation would be a major tourist attractions because it “represents the entire multi-billion dollar orange industry.” He predicted that some 90 percent of the population of the U.S. would want to visit TOS. He was disappointed by the initial lack of enthusiasm and died of a stroke just seven months after the opening. Some of the earliest visitors, however, were members of Houston’s art community who became determined to preserve McKissack’s creation. In 1981 a group of twenty-two concerned citizens led by Marilyn Lubetkin, former president of CAM established the Orange Show Foundation and purchased McKissack’s creation from his heir. TOSF extensively restored and “improved” the site. The Orange Show is open to the public on weekends and holidays from March through December.
Image from orangeshow.org.
Big Whoop
Former Governor and failed presidential candidate Rick Perry endorsed Donald Trump. And in a grand gesture of magnanimity to the presumptive GOP standard-bearer, Perry also noted that he would not be adverse to a vice-presidential nod. No surprise there as Perry has spent most of his adult life slopping at the public trough and a vice-presidency would present him with a nifty lifetime sinecure.
Actually, Red thinks Perry might just be the perfect running mate for DT. He secures a state that Trump couldn’t possibly lose if he named the Unabomber as his vice-president. He can supervise building the wall and then DT can send him to the Distrito Federal to present the bill. He can turn in another pathetic debate performance. But who is Red kidding? DT would never put someone on the ticket that has better hair than his ownself.
And at this point, does anybody really give a damn about what Rick Perry thinks? Anybody, anybody, Bueller, anybody?
Texas Voter ID Law Ripped Apart
Texas has the strictest Voter ID law in the U.S. despite there being no evidence of voter fraud to prevent. As Red has said repeatedly, anyone who knows anything about elections knows that the mail-in ballots are the most likely place for voter hanky-panky and the Voter ID law does nothing about that problem. The law is clearly designed by a Tea Party dominated Legislature to do nothing other than keep as many poor folks and minorities as possible from voting. It is about the most shameless act of political pandering that Red has ever witnessed and it seems like to fail once the Fifth Circuit rules in Veasey v. Abbot. But don’t take it from Red. In a recent article, The Economist destroys the basis for the law and takes down criminally indicted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for his pathetic defense of the basis for the law as well.
From 2000 to 2015, according to the New York Times, the 2011 voter-ID law could have prevented “no more than three or four infractions” qualifying as voter fraud. Yet Mr Paxton insists the rules are necessary to “safeguard the integrity of our elections process” and are “essential to preserving our democracy”. Judges have found quite the opposite. When the law was first challenged in federal district court in the weeks before the 2014 election, Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos struck it down as a violation of the 1st, 14th, 15th and 24th amendments. In her 147-page opinion, Judge Ramos noted “a clear and disturbing pattern of discrimination in the name of combating voter fraud in Texas”. Blacks and Latinos, she noted, are much more likely to lack the required identification and thus would be disproportionately roped out of the voting booth. The Texas law, she concluded, “not only had the effect of discriminating against minorities, but was designed to do so” and constituted a “poll tax”.
Today in Texas History – May 6
From the Annals of Hamburgers – In 1999, Whataburger opened “Whataburger by the Bay” in Corpus Christi. The restaurant is a tribute to founder Harmon Dobson featuring – not surprisingly – views of Corpus Christi Bay and and a life-size bronze statue of Dobson by the entrance. Dobson began in 1950 with a humble stand located on Ayers Street in Corpus Christi. Dobson was killed in a plane crash in 1967 but his family continued the business. Whataburger now has more than 700 locations from Arizona to Florida. Red still remembers the first time his Dad took him to a Whataburger in Victoria. Dad had long talked about what a great hamburger they served and Red was pleased to confirm those reports for himself.
Texas Cemetary Remains for “Whites Only”
Just when Red thought we were past the most overt expressions of racism in our fair country, people in Texas prove him wrong. And sure enough, there comes along a recalcitrant bigot or a whole group of them. This time its a cemetery association and its operator who somehow think that white people can still discriminate even in death. The Texas Tribune reports on the racist goings-on at the San Domingo Cemetery in Normanna.
Dorothy Barrera was married to her late husband, Pedro, for more than 40 years before he died in February. He was Hispanic. She is white. Dorothy expected they would eventually be together again when she was buried beside Pedro in the San Domingo Cemetery in the tiny, rural town of Normanna.
But when she looked to bury his ashes in the cemetery, she allegedly ran into the cemetery’s “whites only” policy — an apparent relic of Jim Crow-era segregation in Texas that’s thrust this small community located an hour northwest of Corpus Christi, into a modern-day desegregation fight.
That’s what is alleged in a federal lawsuit brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund against the Normanna Cemetery Association, which oversees the cemetery. The lawsuit alleges the association is violating the federal Civil Rights Act by enforcing a “whites only” rule at the San Domingo Cemetery, leaving Hispanics and other non-whites to be buried in the nearby Del Bosque Cemetery.
According to the lawsuit, cemetery operator Jimmy Bradford told Barrera that her request to bury her husband at the cemetery had been denied by the Normanna Cemetery Association. When Barrera questioned the vote, Bradford allegedly responded Pedro Barrera couldn’t be buried there “because he’s a Mexican” and directed her to “go up the road and bury him with the n—– and Mexicans,” the federal complaint details.
Is the irony that a cemetery named “San Domingo” wants to prohibit Hispanics from being buried within its august confines lost on anyone other than Red? Well Mr. Jimmy Bradford, if these allegations are true, Red hopes your racist proclivities are proclaimed far and wide throughout the nation and that you are widely exposed as the ignorant bigot that you appear to be. No doubt this overt racism will be cloaked in the veil of religious freedom. And no doubt Mr. Bradford and his cohorts will be voting for Donald Trump.
Photo from thescoopblog.dallasnews.com
Today in Texas History – May 5
From the Annals of the Skywatchers – In 1939, the Otto Struve telescope at the McDonald Observatory was dedicated. The Struve Telescope was the first major telescope to be built at McDonald Observatory. Its 2.1-meter (82-inch) mirror was the second largest in the world at the time. The telescope is still in use today. The popular observatory is located on Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes in the Davis Mountains and is a unit of The University of Texas at Austin featuring astronomical research, teaching, and public education and outreach. The Davis Mountains offer some of the darkest night skies in the continental United States.
Quote for the Day
“Doing stuff is overrated. Like Hitler. He did a lot. But don’t we all wish he woulda just stayed home and gotten stoned?”
Dex from the Tao of Steve
One Last Time (Maybe) – Is There Anything Ted Cruz Doesn’t Lie About?
In his classless non-concession speech last night, Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas) was touting the values of the United States – many of which Red agrees with. But one particular statement caught Red’s attention. “America does not wage wars of conquest.” Well, Ted is either ignorant or as usual lying to serve his rhetorical purposes. Both the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War were clearly started as wars of conquest. And while we let go of much of what was conquered during the SAW – we are still holding on to Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and of course we kept everything we took from Mexico in the MAW.
Today in Texas History – May 4
From the Annals of the Radicals – In 1886, Albert Richard Parsons was implicated in the infamous Chicago Haymarket Massacre. Parsons had moved to Texas as a boy and lived in Tyler, the Hill Country and Galveston where he was a printer’s apprentice. He was the brother of Confederate colonel William Henry Parsons and as a teenager served first in an irregular unit known as the Lone Star Greys and later in Parsons’s Mounted Brigade during the Civil War. After the war, he acquired 40 acres of corn and harvested it with the help of freed slaves. He became a “Radical Republican”and was active in registering freed slaves to vote which no doubt earned him many enemies. Parson also married a woman of mixed racial heritage – Lucy Parsons who had her own career fighting for social change. When the Democrats returned to power after the end of Reconstruction, Parsons was persecuted as a miscegenationist and a scalawag. He moved to Chicago worked as newspaper reporter for the Chicago Tribune and ultimately joined the Workingmen’s Party of the United States – standing as a candidate for Chicago alderman. He was also active in the formation of the Knights of Labor. On the evening of May 4, 1886, Parsons spoke at a meeting in Haymarket Square to protest police brutality. He was with his family in nearby Zepf’s Hall when over 200 policemen marched into the square. The infamous Haymarket Riot was imminent. Someone threw a “bomb” and the police began firing indiscriminately. Most of the seven police officers and seven members of the crowd who were killed died from shots fired from police revolvers. Parsons and seven others were tried for conspiracy to murder and he was hanged. Six years later, Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the three defendants who remained in prison and condemned the convictions as a miscarriage of justice.
Paradise in Hell 