Friday, December 14, 2007

Power of myth

All of a sudden, the debate regarding Evolution/Creationism has flared up here in Texas.

I don't understand why we're still having this argument.

Actually, I do. Too many Christians can't wrap their heads around the fact that they can't wrap their heads around the Mind of God. So, they try to stuff God into a box that that they CAN understand.

A lot like the guy (and it probably was a guy) who wrote the book of Genesis. This fella told a story and tailored it to fit his audience. Since his audience was unfamiliar with the scientific method, he used allegory to answer some of life's fundamental questions.

This technique is tremendously effective and perfectly valid to help a male-dominated, pre-industrial society struggling with issues of identity and survival, hunting desperately to learn what caused the thunder and lightening (and, by the way, horribly threatened by the "pagan," female-dominated cultures around them).

An all-powerful — and slightly capricious — Jehovah seemed to fit the observed facts pretty well, and completely validated their patriarchal culture to boot. But, it was a story — a recitation of myth and legend — told in a way that gave comfort to the intended audience.

Myth is powerful ... but it isn't necessarily literal.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Go ahead and say it. It's okay.

A brief item on Tuesday's National Pubic Radio program, "Morning Edition," sparked my interest.

It seems British Muslims have exited the non-existent War on Christmas saying they don't expect Christmas to be toned down on their account.

As one human rights official said, people should "stop being daft about Christmas." He added, "It's fine for Christ to be star of the show."

Daft. That's a good way to put it.

A couple of years ago, the culture warriors decided that Christmas was under attack because some people prefer to wish their friends a happy holiday rather than a merry Christmas and their mouthpieces on the conservative talk show circuit picked up the battle cry.

Today, there are scores of publications and hundreds of websites devoted to the conflict; some organizations have raised a surprising amount of money to prosecute this "war."

But, before you climb on that sterling white charger to defend Christmas from the infidels, remember that the word "holiday" is simply a contraction of the phrase "holy days." That's really rather appropriate because many of the world's religions have some sort of feast or festival during the last week or so of the calendar year.

So, wishing someone "happy holidays" isn't anti-Christian, it's simply being inclusive. It might even be Christ-like.

Here's another little tidbit to conjure with: the early Christian Church was pretty danged good. They often encountered cultures that welcomed the Christian message but resisted giving up their native pagan feasts. That's why Christ's Mass (uh, Christmas) is celebrated near the Winter Solstice (a high holy day for many pagan religions practiced in Europe 1,500 years ago) rather than when most Biblical scholars say Christ was born, in the spring.

Another element of the War on Christmas is born in timidity and intolerance. Contrary to what culture warriors believe, Nativity scenes have been banished from many county courthouses, not because of any inherit hostility toward Christians but because our Constitution says the government may not favor one religion over another.

If those governmental Nativity scenes were a bit more inclusive ... or, if the governments in question would allow other religious-based dioramas, they'd be fine.

However, culture warriors won't tolerate any of that, so most county judges and town mayors simply bow out of the fray.

Of course, some people can't see any of this. Rather, they see one person's insistence on a more secular seasons' greeting as an attack on their rights to a merry Christmas.

Go ahead. Wish your friends and family a merry Christmas. Really. It's okay.

Just don't be daft and claim a conflict where one doesn't exist.

(Note: a mofidied version of this article was published as an editorial in the Hays Free Press [Kyle, Texas] on Dec. 12, 2007.)

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Public's right to know depends on press freedoms

I've worked as a reporter and editor for small-town Texas newspapers for over 15 years.

During that time, I've dealt with many sensitive or highly controversial topics, and even a confidential source or two, but never has a local prosecutor asked me to testify in front of a grand jury - or any jury - or to relinquish my notes or unpublished photos, or to reveal the name of a confidential source.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that few local prosecutors have ever tried to compel a reporter to testify or turn over stuff like that.

There are a lot of reasons for this. One is few local reporters ever get credible information from someone demanding confidentiality. And, even when they do, few of the people who publish small-town newspapers ever use information like this, and certainly not without independent confirmation.

Another reason is, most prosecutors work very hard to develop their cases and resort to compelling testimony from the press only as a last resort.

That's why a bill working its way through the Texas Legislature establishing guidelines for such things sounds like so much “inside baseball” to most people who read weekly and small daily newspapers - and to most of the people who work at them.

But, it's not just some esoteric debate fit only for policy wonks. Not any more.

Over the last few years - and especially the last year - there have been several high-profile cases that illustrate the peril reporters invite when they offer confidentiality to a news source.

I don't have to detail those cases here - the Valerie Plame case and the BALCO steroids investigation have gotten tremendous coverage - but they seem to mark the end of an admittedly uneasy truce between the news media and the government that has existed since the end of the Watergate era.

Quite suddenly - at least, at the glacial pace of jurisprudence - the unspoken agreements and policies that have for years moderated relationships between the working press and prosecuting attorneys has begun to morph dangerously - at least from a standpoint of press freedoms.

Should journalists have at least some protection against subpoenas seeking to compel testimony or the surrender of notes and tapes?

In Texas, reporters will risk jail time if they refuse to hand over their notes and unpublished photographs or reveal sources to whom they have promised confidentiality. That threat, which was seldom ever invoked, is now very real.

Open government advocates, press associations and citizen-driven public policy groups in Texas say yes, there should be some sort of protection for reporters. County and district attorneys in Texas, along with other law enforcement officials, say no, there shouldn't.

Prosecutors' arguments boil down to: It is a citizen's duty to give truthful testimony when asked. Why should journalists be any different?

Advocates of the bill respond this way: The government has all kinds of incredibly persuasive tools to compel cooperation. It is important that the press have some protections - even if those protections are strictly limited - else it is little more than another arm of the government. If so, this creates a chilling effect on the ability of the public, for which the press is a surrogate, to criticize the government and look into governmental corruption.

The Texas Free Flow of Information Act (SB966 sponsored by Senators Rodney Ellis and Robert Duncan, and HB 382 by Rep. Aaron Pena and HB 2249 sponsored by Rep. Corbin Van Arsdale) seeks to strike a balance between these two positions.

It grants very specific and limited protections for confidential sources, work derived from confidential sources and related notes, and sets out a three-pronged test that, when met, allows a prosecutor to compel testimony.

Simply, it codifies the relationship that most of the press in Texas already has with most of the county and district attorneys in Texas.

When people have access to a free and unfettered flow of information, they make better decisions and can hold officials accountable. Allowing reporters a limited ability to protect confidential sources only strengthens the public's ability to get good information and that strengthens our democracy.

This is good legislation and deserves support.

This column was syndicated to Texas newspapers April 2007.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Access to public information unearthed TYC scandal

If you ever needed an example of the importance of our state's open government laws, you need look no further than the current scandals rocking the Texas Youth Commission.

Last month, the Texas Observer broke the story about how TYC officials ignored, then tried to cover up evidence that administrators at the Pyote unit in West Texas molested several boys in 2004 and 2005.

The Dallas Morning News broke its coverage Feb. 19, two days later and, the next thing you know, everyone knew about it.

Texans exploded in anger and the revelations touched off a legislative firestorm. The more the story came into focus, the more the vastness of the problem became apparent, the more enraged everyone became.

The governor appointed a special master and a new administrator. Last week, Texas Rangers, DPS troopers and attorney general staffers staged an unannounced occupation of TYC offices statewide. Newspapers carry tales of new, horrible discoveries every day.

There are allegations of physical abuse, extortion, and over 750 instances of sex abuse.

Certain TYC officials had managed to keep it buried - even though the Texas Rangers investigated early allegations - but, once people started digging, it just all spurted out like pus from a gangrenous sore. It shows no sign of abating any time soon.

And it all came to light because Texas has laws protecting your right to know what your government - and its various, labyrinthine agencies - are doing in your name.

A handful of diligent reporters heard a tip then used the Public Information Act to unearth all the documents, records and emails they needed to build the story. Then they started asking questions. Lots of them.

Before long, a different group of very powerful people started asking some rather pointed questions of their own.

And that shows no sign of abating either. Thank God and, apparently, it's about time.

We can't tolerate this kind of criminal behavior against people put in the state's care. Never mind that these juveniles are serious trouble, many of them. As individuals, they are very nearly helpless in the clutches of the State. No matter what they've done to earn their time in the TYC, they shouldn't have to fear physical or sexual abuse at the hands of the people who control their fate.

This awful circumstance is exactly what our open government laws were intended to uncover. It's a shame that not everyone really understands importance and intent of those laws.

According to an Associated Press story published Sunday, a handful of Texas newspapers recently conducted an informal public records audit and the results weren't encouraging.

Reporters went to nine local agencies across the state and asked for copies of the community's emergency response plans. Congress mandated that these plans be available to the public so, except for some very narrowly defined security information, confidentiality wasn't an issue. Indeed, in the wake of the state's struggle to absorb evacuations that resulted from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, public scrutiny of local emergency response plans is entirely appropriate.

But, of the nine requests, three were denied completely. Three other requests were granted, but only after a great deal of information was redacted. At only three of the nine agencies were reporters granted full access to the emergency plans, as the law requires.

That's sad. All it took was for someone to shine a little light on the cesspool the TYC had become to uncover the abuses of that system Š but someone had to shine that light.

Who knows what might be found buried in local emergency response plans? Perhaps we'd simply find that our public officials are doing a good job preparing for the worst.

Perhaps not, but it doesn't matter. When any government official or agency decides it's okay to determine what's good for us to know and what isn't, that constitutes an abuse of our state's open government laws and an abuse of public trust.

As the TYC scandals point out, government simply works better when the people's business in conducted in the public.

This column was syndicated to Texas newspapers March 2007.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Record votes a clear path to good state government

If it's good enough for Craddick, it's good enough for the rest of us!

Folks in the Austin press corps got a big chuckle in January when Tom Craddick pushed his fellows to record how they would vote in his effort to be re-elected Speaker of the Texas House.

You see, Craddick has been a staunch, behind-the-scenes opponent of record votes in the Texas House but, when his political power was threatened, he jumped on the bandwagon - temporarily, at least - because it gave him a way to intimidate recalcitrant legislators.

The rhetoric and debate leading up to that vote was a bit dizzying. Suddenly, some of the same people who de-railed last session's record vote legislation were heard arguing forcefully in favor of record votes!

It's too bad those arguments were disingenuous. Neither Craddick nor any other House leader has any intention of actually putting into law a measure that would require all substantive votes taken in the Texas House of Representatives be on the record. In their opinion, the concept is too much trouble, good only as a tool of intimidation not as a method to ensure transparency.

Here's the issue: There is nothing in the law that requires Texas legislators to state, on the record, how they voted on important legislation. And, unless the issue is forced, legislators won't go on the record with their votes.

In just one example from the 2005 session, representatives voted to exempt themselves from a bill requiring candidates to file campaign contributions and expenditures electronically - but not their future challengers. But, you can't tell who voted how because the vote wasn't recorded.

Now, before you say that all you expect of a Texas Legislator is that he votes his conscience, know that whether or not a vote is on the record has a profound impact on the outcome. A motion to table that bill - essentially killing it - appeared headed to easy passage until a record vote was requested. Suddenly, the vote flipped, and the motion to table failed.

In other words, Texas legislators often have one set of ethics when the vote is on the record and another when it's not.

Sadly, many legislators believe this issue is important only to the media. The disdainful comments legislators made during committee hearings make that clear, and the same comments make it clear many legislators don't take this very seriously.

It's true, the media - specifically newspapers - have pushed very hard over the last two or three sessions for this kind of legislation, not because it makes our jobs easier - though, in some ways, it does. Newspapers are in favor of this legislation because it makes it easier for citizens of Texas to hold lawmakers accountable.

Ironically, legislators are all in favor of accountability (especially for educators) but not so much where it comes to their own actions.

As it did in 2005, the Texas Senate will likely approve some type of legislation mandating record votes. But, unless they can pass the House State Affairs Committee in the next week or two, none of the several bills filed will make it to the House floor for debate and that means the fate of this legislation rests in the hands of nine state representatives (see sidebar).

Texas is one of only 10 states that does not have some sort of requirement that votes on major legislation be on the record, and it's easier to find out how your U.S. Congressman or city council member voted than your state representative or senator.

Good government advocates all across the state - including the League of Women Voters and nearly every citizen advocacy group you might name - have called for this kind of legislation in Texas.

Indeed, in the run-up to the Speaker's vote, 80 Texas legislators voted in favor of record votes, at least on the Speaker's race. That some of the same people who've quashed previous attempts to mandate record votes are among these 80 legislators merely adds to the irony.

Texas legislators must end the hypocrisy of using voice votes to avoid accountability. If it's important that folks back home know how legislators voted in the Speaker's race, it's important for them to know how they voted on other important issues.

Texas House State Affairs Committee
Chairman: David Swinford (R-Amarillo)
Vice chair: Ken Paxton (R-McKinney)
Committee: Corbin Van Arsdale (R-Houston), Wayne Christian (R-Center), Jessica Farrar (D-Lindale Park), Byron Cook (R-Corsicana), Dan Flynn (R-Canton), Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) and Marc Veasey (D-Ft. Worth)

Of this committee, all voted in favor of having a record vote for Speaker of the House, except Jessica Farrar and Marc Veasey who were only two of 16 legislators to vote against Rep. Tom Craddick for Speaker of the house.


This opinion column was syndicated February, 2007.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Perry’s orders are out of bounds

You might almost feel a bit of sympathy for Rick Perry. Almost.

After all, it isn’t often that the leader of one of this nation’s greatest states get his hand slapped by both the legislative and judicial branches of government, all in the same week.

Last Tuesday, State District Judge Stephen Yelenosky rebuked Gov. Perry’s executive order to “fast track” the permitting process for a clutch of new coal-fired electrical generating plants.

Then, the very next day, the House Public Health Committee repudiated Perry’s mandate that all sixth-grade girls be vaccinated for the human papilloma virus. Since the bill the committee was considering had 90 sponsors, it’s probably a lock for passage when it goes to the House floor for debate.

It’s as if Perry had said, “Hey, guys … let’s go this way! Talley Ho!” and the state’s legislators and judges turned around, looked at him askance and replied, “And, who are you, exactly?”
And, really, that’s as it should be. In these two cases, at least, Perry overstepped his authority, and the folks against whom he trespassed told him so.

On the one hand, the state’s judiciary ruled the governor can’t just set aside processes and procedures, designed to curb the damaging excesses of big polluters, simply because the permitting rules take danged near one year to observe. On the other, legislators took serious umbrage at Perry’s decision to bypass the legislative process in favor of a flat mandate for a health issue that probably deserves a great deal of public debate.

You have to wonder a bit at Perry’s “fast track” order, especially after the furor raised in rural Texas by the proposed Trans Texas Corridor. I agree we’ll need the power in the not-too-distant future (just like we’ll need to address our highway system) but is this really the best way to go about it?

And, why are we in such a hurry?

And, do we really want to return Texas to the bad old days when power plants belched thick, black smoke into the air, refineries pumped toxic sludge into our bays and trucks drove through our residential streets spraying DDT to control mosquitoes?

I don’t think so. While the process to permit a new power generating plant can be expensive and excruciating, that process is there for some very good and very sound reasons.

Besides, the plants will probably get approved anyway. It’s Big Bid’ness, after all. This just gives us all a chance to get used to the idea.

On the other issue, I have to admit a grudging respect for Perry while at the same time wondering at his incredible hubris. If his heart’s in the right place (and, on this issue, I believe it probably is), that decision took a lot of courage. There are few orders he could issue more likely to profoundly upset his base than one mandating a vaccine, that controls the spread of a sexually transmitted disease, be given to sixth-grade girls.

On top of that, we’re Texans, by gum! We don’t kowtow to just anyone. I mean, who is this guy to tell us how to raise our kids!? (Never mind that the vaccine will also likely prevent the most common form of cervical cancer in a tremendous number of women and, like the power plants and highway, be approved anyway.)

Perry must miss his days as lieutenant governor. The Governor of Texas barely has the authority to blow his nose on his own, much less make sweeping, unilateral changes to environmental and public health policy. Texas may be one of the greatest states in the nation but everybody knows its governor is among the weakest.

The lieutenant governor is the state’s most powerful elected official and even he has to bow to the appearance of a legislative process. But, even then, the lieutenant governor is only as powerful as the Senate allows, which it usually does (for modern examples, see Bob Bullock, Bill Hobby, et al.).

Oh, uhh ... as I recall, the Senate curtailed the lieutenant governor’s power those two years Perry held the post.

Instead of side stepping the rules, Perry should encourage vigorous public debate on issues that are sure to be controversial. This is laudatory and well within his purview as governor. Anything else smacks of overweening pride and behind-the-scenes deal making.

This column was syndicated Feb.2, 2007.