Friday, 13 June, 2003

Texas Statehouse Wranglin' Posse (legend of) I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. The more details that emerge on this story the worse it seems. The Washington Post wrote a fair sized one last Saturday. I like the part about how the investigators are having to identify the individuals who concocted this impromptu varmint hunt in Tom Craddick's (R. Texas-State leg)conference room, from a video camera tape because they're having trouble getting an idea of who was involved. I can't shake the feeling that to people like Tom DeLay there is little difference that they can see between terrorists and uncompliant democrats. This crowd reached fast and hard for the special surveillance power of the Patriot Act and the Federal Government to police a state political dispute. It makes me wonder what DeLay understands about any of it. 9:24:30 AM    comment []; Women vs. Men A curious story, Women in College, appeared on the Newshour last Wednesday. The story came from Oregon Public Television and was reported by Lee Hochberg. Focus of the story was the large imbalance now occurring, apparently across the entire U.S., in female enrollment in college over that of men. The situation has been developing long enough that the point things are at now involves people trying to figure out what to do about this gender gap. Which can also be viewed as a large drop in white male enrollment. A lot of very different attitudes in play on this. Some people seem to think this is a good thing more or less. Something that might serve to even out the wage differential, or adjust the height of glass ceilings. Other people regarded it as a call to arms, a thing that must be addressed immediately by whatever means necessary. I had the feeling listening to the report that for as many institutions and advocates that have actually tried or publicly suggested quotas and firm pro-active schemes to solve this problem, a lot more thought about it. At least until the irony of such direct action in a current atmosphere that roundly disparages affirmative action - for minorities - set in. Regardless, the problem seems to extend backward through secondary and primary education. There was a line in the aired version about what lumpen societal dropouts uneducated men become. I'd think about this more, but I got to go pound dirt with a rock and watch Fox. 9:17:50 AM    comment [];

© Copyright 2003 Paul Bushmiller. Last update: 7/04/03; 16:17:29.