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Hestia
Hestia's Journal
Hestia's Journal
July 15, 2017
Why I Love Terrorists - Prince Ea
To me, he is describing John Kerry and other Statesmen that came before. Understanding...
July 14, 2017
I did a search for the article but it did not come up as being previously posted. Mea culpa if it has.
Wow - this absolutely the adage of All Politics is Local. These people need to stopped in try to spread the cancer that is the modern GOP throughout the land. Holding Medical Licensure hostage for a bathroom bill.
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Ive lived in Texas for most of my life, and Ive come to appreciate what the state symbolizes, both to people who live here and to those who view it from afar. Texans see themselves as a distillation of the best qualities of America: friendly, confident, hardworking, patriotic, neurosis-free. Outsiders see us as the nations id, a place where rambunctious and disavowed impulses run wild. Texans, it is thought, mindlessly celebrate individualism, and view government as a kind of kryptonite that weakens the entrepreneurial muscles. Were reputed to be braggarts; careless with money and our personal lives; a little gullible, but dangerous if crossed; insecure, but obsessed with power and prestige.
Texans, however, are hardly monolithic. The state is as politically divided as the rest of the nation. One can drive across it and be in two different states at the same time: FM Texas and AM Texas. FM Texas is the silky voice of city dwellers, the kingdom of NPR. It is progressive, blue, reasonable, secular, and smugalmost like California. AM Texas speaks to the suburbs and the rural areas: Trumpland. Its endless bluster and endless ads. Paranoia and piety are the main items on the menu.
Texas has been growing at a stupefying rate for decades. The only state with more residents is California, and the number of Texans is projected to double by 2050, to 54.4 million, almost as many people as in California and New York combined. Three Texas citiesHouston, Dallas, and San Antonioare already among the top ten most populous in the country. The eleventh largest is Austin, the capital, where I live. For the past five years, it has been one of the fastest-growing large cities in America; it now has nearly a million people, dwarfing the college town I fell in love with almost forty years ago. Because Texas represents so much of modern Americathe South, the West, the plains, the border, the Latino community, the divide between rural areas and citieswhat happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation. Illinois and New Jersey may be more corrupt, and Kansas and Louisiana more out of whack, but they dont bear the responsibility of being the future.
Ive always had a fascination with Texass outsized politics. In 2000, I wrote a play that was set in the states House of Representatives. The protagonist, Sonny Lamb, was a rancher from West Texas who represented House District 74, which, in real life, stretches across thirty-seven thousand square miles. (Thats larger than Indiana.) While I was doing research for the play, I met in Austin with Pete Laney, a Democrat and a cotton farmer from Hale County, who, at the time, was the speaker of the House. Laney was known as a scrupulously fair and honest leader who inspired a bipartisan spirit among the members. The grateful representatives called him Dicknose.
America's Future is Texas
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/10/americas-future-is-texasI did a search for the article but it did not come up as being previously posted. Mea culpa if it has.
Wow - this absolutely the adage of All Politics is Local. These people need to stopped in try to spread the cancer that is the modern GOP throughout the land. Holding Medical Licensure hostage for a bathroom bill.
---
Ive lived in Texas for most of my life, and Ive come to appreciate what the state symbolizes, both to people who live here and to those who view it from afar. Texans see themselves as a distillation of the best qualities of America: friendly, confident, hardworking, patriotic, neurosis-free. Outsiders see us as the nations id, a place where rambunctious and disavowed impulses run wild. Texans, it is thought, mindlessly celebrate individualism, and view government as a kind of kryptonite that weakens the entrepreneurial muscles. Were reputed to be braggarts; careless with money and our personal lives; a little gullible, but dangerous if crossed; insecure, but obsessed with power and prestige.
Texans, however, are hardly monolithic. The state is as politically divided as the rest of the nation. One can drive across it and be in two different states at the same time: FM Texas and AM Texas. FM Texas is the silky voice of city dwellers, the kingdom of NPR. It is progressive, blue, reasonable, secular, and smugalmost like California. AM Texas speaks to the suburbs and the rural areas: Trumpland. Its endless bluster and endless ads. Paranoia and piety are the main items on the menu.
Texas has been growing at a stupefying rate for decades. The only state with more residents is California, and the number of Texans is projected to double by 2050, to 54.4 million, almost as many people as in California and New York combined. Three Texas citiesHouston, Dallas, and San Antonioare already among the top ten most populous in the country. The eleventh largest is Austin, the capital, where I live. For the past five years, it has been one of the fastest-growing large cities in America; it now has nearly a million people, dwarfing the college town I fell in love with almost forty years ago. Because Texas represents so much of modern Americathe South, the West, the plains, the border, the Latino community, the divide between rural areas and citieswhat happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation. Illinois and New Jersey may be more corrupt, and Kansas and Louisiana more out of whack, but they dont bear the responsibility of being the future.
Ive always had a fascination with Texass outsized politics. In 2000, I wrote a play that was set in the states House of Representatives. The protagonist, Sonny Lamb, was a rancher from West Texas who represented House District 74, which, in real life, stretches across thirty-seven thousand square miles. (Thats larger than Indiana.) While I was doing research for the play, I met in Austin with Pete Laney, a Democrat and a cotton farmer from Hale County, who, at the time, was the speaker of the House. Laney was known as a scrupulously fair and honest leader who inspired a bipartisan spirit among the members. The grateful representatives called him Dicknose.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Natural Steps, AR
Current location: Natural Steps, AR
Member since: Sun Jan 8, 2006, 07:02 PM
Number of posts: 3,818