A bit late on this one, but my last column as a summer guest writer for the Daily Texan ran yesterday. It's been a great experience in which I've had a chance to write some longer thoughts on a lot of topics that don't usually get as much coverage and support a paper I love.
The majority of today's post is below the fold, but I think you'll like it if you've been following what's been going on south of the border at all.
The night of the (Mexico) election…
By Karl-Thomas Musselman | Daily Texan Columnist
'Twas the night of the election, and all through the states,
The results were dead even, and high were the stakes;
The campaigns were constructed by experts with care,
In hopes that the presidency would soon be theirs;
Obrador and Calderon were nestled, all snug in their beds,
While visions of Los Pinos danced through their heads;
With PRI in the doghouse, and Vicente Fox in his last lap,
My family and I, settled in for a nap -
Today being the 40th Anniversary of the Tower shootings, my weekly Daily Texan column focuses on what the Tower has been through and stands for to us here in the UT community. Check out today's Texan for a very complete and respectful 40th Anniversary edition.
The Eyes of Texas have long been upon us.
For nearly 70 years, four owl-like foci have gazed from atop our 307-foot-tall icon.
The Tower has watched over us during moments of grandeur as well as times of deep sorrow. It has overseen our social progress as well as our reactionary setbacks.
Emblazoned with a robe of solid orange, it knows the triumph of victory. Shrouded in inky blackness, it knows the hushed stillness of tragic loss.
It suffers all criticism. It survives every choice made. It will endure through the ages.
Looking east the eyes see the past, present and future of public policy. There lay the struggles of race but the hope of a colorblind society, the challenges of age-old conflict but the necessity of peace in our time.
Looking north the eyes see the heartland. There lay the traditions of proud people under attack by the quickening beat of progress. But like the Tower, they can not be forgotten.
Looking west the eyes see fulfillment. There lay the Manifest Destiny of centuries past living on still today. For every physical frontier met and filled, a new front will be opened on a technological or intellectual plane.
Looking south the eyes see uncertainty. There lay the Goddess of Liberty, her backside turned upon the institution meant to catch the skyward gaze of the each successive generation. Surely she must not be blind to all those in search of the golden key to the greatest social achievement constructed by man. Her acknowledgement is of cardinal importance.
The Eyes of Texas, one steward with millions of charges, remains our collective guardian angel. Our decisions may be guided, but never chosen for us. Our futures may be molded, but never precast.
Today, as we remember the events of 40 years past, our eyes - unafraid, unflinching and unabashed - look to you, Texas.
I didn't realize at the time how appropriate this week's Daily Texan column would be as it matched up with both Phillip's 40/40 this week and a front-page story in the Texan about the Trans-Texas Corridor. As such, my column below. (Major props to the Editor JJ Hermes for pitching the idea of the giant TTC cutting across the column in the print edition!)
There is an issue in Texas quietly building steam in what could be a major campaign theme in this fall's elections for governor and the state agricultural commissioner.
It's an issue that has folks in rural Texas feeling the pain of Native Americans centuries prior. It's an issue that has farmers and ranchers readying their pitchforks. And it's an issue that has some of the most conservative counties in the state upset with Republicans they used to consider defenders of free men on the range.
The issue is the Trans-Texas Corridor, a 4,000-mile, $183-billion plan proposed by Republicans and promoted by Gov. Rick Perry as the 50-year solution to Texas' traffic needs. The routes span the state, snaking across central and eastern Texas, connecting Laredo to Oklahoma and Arkansas. Future routes could bring in an East-West line from El Paso or others up through the Panhandle.
Each corridor could contain up to four trucker lanes, six vehicle lanes, six rail lines and a 200-foot utility path. At its maximum size, each TTC could be 1,200 feet wide, consuming up to 9,000 square miles of land, more than exists in all of New Jersey.
These massive property and investment requirements give rise to much of the objection from rural landowners. Cutting through countless farms and ranches and looping around suburbia will be a path wider than the distance between Austin's Congress and First Street bridges. One could set the entire state Capitol inside of the right of way.
It's another Texan Tuesday. My guest column this week is about college which is quite timely considering bonddad's post below and twoother op-ed pieces in today's paper.
Daily Texan: During these summer months filled with condensed classes and the weekly procession of nervous new registrants to our great University, we may at times wax philosophic about the big "whys" of college. Beyond the questions of which professors to take, how many minors to add and whether or not we will ever get an A from seeing the albino squirrel, there is the big question we would all like answered:
What do you do with a B.A. in English,
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college and plenty of knowledge,
Have earned me this useless degree.
Similar to the cast of Broadway's Avenue Q (without the tendency to break out into a coordinated dance number while walking down the West Mall), we'd all like to know what we are going to do with our college degree (nothing personal English majors).
Yes, there are plenty of students who've had it planned all along. But excepting that national science fair winner who got that killer research grant working in Sweden, where a well-known chemist hired him to manage her lab for a quarter million a year, the rest of us want to know, "Why college?" in the face of what seems to be a world ready for the taking.
Why do we keep paying for the increasing costs of education each year? After a few classes, how many have realized how smart they already are and that they could be filling some newly listed job opening? How many working students have thought about just banking that job money or making more by dropping those classes?
While there are some simple answers, it is indeed a complex web of reasoning that keeps us following the academic tradition.
