Flaco Jiménez (1939-2025) "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone"

When I first heard Leonardo "Flaco" Jimenez doing his accordion magic, he was in distinguished company. It was on the album Doug Sahm and Band, which I acquired not long after its release in 1973. Along with Doug and Flaco, the musicians on the album included Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David "Fathead" Newman, David Bromberg, and Kenny Kosek. With all that I heard Flaco's accordion, an instrument for which I hadn't yet developed a great liking, doing wonderful things.

After that, Flaco joined the Texas Tornados, another Doug Sahm led group that included Freddy Fender (born Baldemar Huerta), a star in his own right, and Augie Meyers, whose stylings on his Vox Continental organ (an instrument also used by Ray Manzarek of The Doors) thrilled me since I'd first listened to the Sir Douglas Quintet in the '60s. The video above is of the Tornados doing "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone," a song that was made a hit by Charley Pride, the first Black artist to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I chose the Tornados' version of this song as an example of Flaco's style because of the delightful interplay of his accordion with Augie's Vox organ, and because of my own connection to San Antonio, where I spent a couple of formative childhood years. 

As I've told elsewhere, it was in San Antonio that my mother, who grew up in central Pennsylvania, learned to buy fresh tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, that we would often have for dinner, and where, for my fourth birthday, I was given a "Billy the Kid" outfit that included a hat, denim shirt and jeans, boots, a belt with a holster, and a cap pistol, from Joske's of Texas. When I returned to San Antonio in the '90s for a convention I went to what had been Joske's but had become part of a national chain, hoping to get a pair of "cowgirl" boots for my then three year old daughter. I was told they didn't carry such things. I then learned that the place to go for Western attire was el Barrio. 

I now know that Flaco and I had San Antonio in common; he was born and raised there. When I first moved to Brooklyn Heights in the mid '80s I often indulged the taste for tamales I had acquired in San Antonio at a now long gone little restaurant called Old Mexico. On weekends an accordionist, whose name I'm sorry to say I've forgotten, would play there. I told him I enjoyed his music, and that I was a fan of Flaco's. He said he had recently seen Flaco perform, that he was as good as ever, but that Flaco wasn't flaco (Spanish for "skinny") any more.

Adios, Flaco. Perhaps the heavenly choir will appreciate some accordion accompaniment

The World Series is underway; I'm casting my lot with the Braves

 It didn't turn out the way I wanted. My Mets had a promising start, then, as has long been their wont, imploded. That left me with two possibilities: my old home town's team (although it didn't exist until long after I left there), the Rays; and my wife's team, the Red Sox. The Sox knocked the Rays out of contention, then were knocked out by the Astros. Meanwhile the Braves won the National League pennant. 

How do I choose? Atlanta and Houston are both cities in which I've spent some time, and like. They're both islands of progressivism in otherwise mostly conservative states, although Texas has a proud liberal tradition (I remember Governor Ann Richards giving the keynote address at a convention I attended in Houston in which she suggested the insurance industry needed more effective regulation and, when only one man clapped, said, "You're a lo-o-onely feller!"). I also remember hearing some great blues at a little place called the Reddi Room on White Oak in Houston. 

I'll forgive Atlanta for having, at the height of the civil rights struggle in the 1960s adopted the most tone-deaf slogan imaginable - "The city too busy to hate." (Sorry, can't make it to the Klan rally; my company has to file a 10-K.) I have fond memories of an "Ecumenical Conference on Urbanization and Technology" I attended in 1966 at the Emory University campus, during which I met and had a short but inspiring conversation with the then head of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, a young firebrand named John Lewis. Years later, I had my blues experience at Blues Harbor in Underground Atlanta, where I heard Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and got to meet and talk with him after his set.

So, who do I pick to win the Series? I'm a Mets fan, and they're a National League team, so, despite the Braves' often having been the Mets' nemesis, I'm going with the Braves. For what it's worth (probably not much), as I write this they have a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the third in game one. Oh, and since the Braves started as a Boston team, my wife has some skin in this game, too.

Whoever wins, though, I won't be that disappointed.

Astros rule!

The Houston Astros have won their first World Series championship, prevailing at the end of a thrill packed seven game marathon. I began the Series with no particular rooting interest. If my Mets aren't involved, as they certainly weren't this year, my default has usually been to root for the National League team. This is partly because the Mets are NL, and mostly because of my dislike of the designated hitter rule. I make exceptions for two American League teams: the Red Sox, out of spousal loyalty, and the Rays, out of loyalty to my old home city, even though I left it long before they existed (of course, I wouldn't root for either of these over the Mets; when the Red Sox and Mets play I keep very quiet at home).

This year, presented with the Dodgers vs. the Astros, I chose the Astros. Part of it is that I've never quite forgiven the Dodgers, who were my first love in baseball, even though I lived far from Brooklyn at the time, for leaving the borough that has been my home for longer than anywhere else in my peripatetic life. Part of it is also my memory of the Dodgers derailing the Mets' shot, in 1988, at a second NL pennant in three years; especially the memory of Davey Lopes loping around the bases with his right index finger pointed up.

As for the Astros: well, they were an NL team within recent memory. They had never won a Series championship, thereby appealing to my underdog fetish. More importantly, having visited there several times, I came to like Houston. It's a lively, very diverse city with an active arts scene, and the source of some great blues and R&B (remember Archie Bell and the Drells?) And, as a friend and Red Sox fan put it after the 'Stros beat the Sox in the ALDS, "Houston needs something this year." Also, for reasons stated in a footnote here, which I'll repeat here:

I love Texas. Yes, I love it in spite of its perhaps greater than average quotient of jingoistic and ultra-fundamentalist nutjobs. I love it for the likes of Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, and Molly Ivins, as well as for having gotten drunk a few times with Kinky Friedman (who could sometimes be an asshole, but was always interesting) and Jim Hightower (who was always a gentleman, but never dull), and for having (at a fundraiser for Jim at the old Lone Star Cafe on 5th Avenue, when he was running for Chair of the Texas Railroad Commission) danced the "Cotton-Eyed Joe" with Cissy Farenthold and twenty or so other of her nearest and dearest friends. I love it for Terry Allen, Archie Bell and the Drells, Asleep at the Wheel, the Austin Lounge Lizards, the Big Bopper, Guy Clark, Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Freddy Fender, Nanci Griffith, Carolyn Hester, Adolph Hofner, Buddy Holly, Lightnin' Hopkins, Flaco Jimenez, Janis Joplin, the Light Crust Doughboys (especially John "Knocky" Parker), Augie Meyer, Mouse and the Traps, Doug Sahm, Joe Tex, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Townes Van Zandt, Willie and Waylon and Jerry Jeff, and Bob Wills. I love it for Larry McMurtry. I love it for having spent a couple of formative years in San Antonio when my dad was stationed there in the Air Force, where my Pennsylvania bred mom learned to buy fresh tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, and serve them to us for dinner once a week, and where my fourth birthday present was a Billy the Kid outfit from Joske's.

Yes, I love Texas; not that I don't love California, where I have ancestral roots. That's another story, though.

Guy Clark, "Texas 1947" and "Let Him Roll"

Guy Clark (1941-2016), who died on May 17, was a songwriter and singer from Texas. Although he was a very good singer, he's better remembered as a songwriter, because only one of his recordings of his songs charted--"Homegrown Tomatoes" in 1983--but a number of covers did. Among these were "L.A. Freeway" and "Desperados Waiting for a Train" by Jerry Jeff Walker (my favorite cover of "Desperados" is by Tom Rush, about whom I wrote here), and "Heartbroke" by Ricky Skaggs. Clark served as a mentor to many younger members of the country music scene, among them Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle. He also became a master luthier; a builder of guitars.


My favorite Guy Clark song, given that I'm a train buff, is "Texas 1947", which you can hear in the clip above, along with "Let Him Roll", also from his first album, Old No. 1. "Texas 1947" is autobiographical, telling of his going at the age of six to "the depot" in his hometown, Monahans, Texas, to see something new.

That "something" proved to be a streamlined passenger train, no doubt the Texas Special of the Texas & Pacific Railroad (photo above), pulled by a then novel diesel locomotive ("Big and red and silver, she don't make no smoke"). Although he was five years my senior, Clark and I shared seeing what railfans call the "transition years", when steam gave way to diesel.

The clip above shows Clark in a 2011 live performance of "My Favorite Picture of You", a song about his wife, the singer, songwriter, and painter Susanna Clark, who died in 2012. This became the title song of Guy Clark's last album, and the only one to win a Grammy.

TBT: The Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law"

Back when I was in law school (1967-70) at this time of the year, as final exams were finishing, lots of calls went from my classmates to the two big Boston top 40 AM stations, WMEX and WRKO, requesting this 1966 hit by the Bobby Fuller Four, a group that gave a harder edge to the Buddy Holly West Texas rockabilly sound.

The song was later covered by The Clash, completing a bridge from Buddy Holly to '70s punk.

The Texas Archives War

The statue in the photo above is of Angelina Eberly.  I'd never heard of her until I read Gail Collins's column Wendy and the Boys in Wednesday's New York Times. The column focuses on Texas State Senator Wendy Davis's filibuster that succeeded in stopping a bill that may have effectively outlawed all abortions in Texas. Ms. Collins began it thus:

There is an old saying that Texas is “heaven for men and dogs, but hell for women and oxen.” But the state’s history is chock-full of stories of female role models. Barbara Jordan. Ann Richards. In downtown Austin, there’s a statue of Angelina Eberly, heroine of the Texas Archives War of 1842, firing a cannon and looking about 7 feet tall.

Collins then says she doesn't have time to explain the Texas Archives War, although she goes on to say, "it's an extremely interesting story." It seemed most interesting to me, as my wife is an archivist, and through her I've met many other archivists and learned a little about that fascinating profession. ("So, you're an archivist. What exactly do you do?" my mother asked my wife-to-be. "I read other people's mail and I don't have to answer it," was the reply.) Although I once had a silly fantasy about a comic book series called Action Combat Archivists, the notion of an "Archives War" seemed, well, bizarre. I had to look it up. The Texas State Historical Association website tells the tale:

In March 1842 a division of the Mexican army under Gen. Rafael Vásquez appeared at San Antonio demanding the surrender of the town; the Texans were not prepared to resist and withdrew. On March 10 President Sam Houston called an emergency session of the Texas Congress. Fearing that the Mexicans would move on Austin, he named Houston as the meetingplace. The citizens of Austin, fearful that the president wished to make Houston the capital, formed a vigilante committee of residents and warned department heads that any attempt to move state papers would be met with armed resistance. President Houston called the Seventh Congress into session at Washington-on-the-Brazos and at the end of December 1842 sent a company of rangers under Col. Thomas I. Smith and Capt. Eli Chandler to Austin with orders to remove the archives but not to resort to bloodshed. The Austin vigilantes were unprepared for the raid, and the rangers loaded the archives in wagons and drove away, but not before Mrs. Angelina Eberly fired a cannon at them. On January 1, 1843 the vigilance committee, under Capt. Mark B. Lewis, seized a cannon from the arsenal and overtook the wagons at Kenney's Fort on Brushy Creek. Only a few shots were fired before the rangers gave up the papers in order to avoid bloodshed. The archives were returned to Austin and remained there unmolested until Austin became the capital again in 1844.

So, there you have it. A war in which the first shot was fired by a woman, and in which nobody gets killed, or even hurt. And all over archives. Well, to be fair, really over what was to be the capital of the then independent Republic of Texas. Another reason, along with Wendy Davis (and many others; see the addendum to this post), for me to love the Lone Star State.

The photo is from the home page of an Austin based "psychedelic Americana band" called Archive War.

The CalTex Series

With both the Phillies and Rays eliminated, I lost both teams I could have a strong reason (Tampa is my old home town; Pennsylvania my native state) to support in this year's World Series. With the Yankees out, I also lost the one team I loathe (actually, in the interest of boosting the local economy, I was rooting for the Yanks to win the AL championship, then lose the Series in seven games to either the Giants or Phils). So, I'm left to decide between the Giants and the Rangers, or simply to sit back and watch without taking sides. 


Reasons for supporting the Giants: (1) they are the representative of the Real Baseball League, as opposed to the Designated Hitter League; (2) my maternal grandfather was born and raised in California, so I'm one of those odd people who can claim roots there without ever having been a resdient; (3) my earliest baseball memory is of Willie Mays making a spectacular catch in the 1954 Series (New York Giants vs. Cleveland Indians); and (4) I love San Francisco.


Reasons for supporting the Rangers: (1) they're scrappy, low-salary underdogs; and (2) I love Texas (really; scroll down to the addendum to the linked post).

By a score of 4-2, the Giants win my loyalty.


Update: So far, so good. Giants dodge one Cliff Lee bullet.

Second update: Giants "Cain" rangers, 9-0 to take 2-0 Series lead.

Stephen Bruton, 1948-2009

Stephen Bruton was an immensely talented guitarist, singer and songwriter who was part of the Texas generation and milieu that produced Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Janis Joplin, Kris Kristofferson, Delbert McClinton and many other great musicians, including his close friend T-Bone Burnett, at whose house he died this morning. His music incorporated influences of blues, bluegrass, country, jazz, norteño and rockabilly.

The clip above shows him recording his song, "Getting Over You." This song was also recorded as a duet by Willie Nelson and Bonnie Raitt, and released on Willie's album Across the Borderline.

Update: Here's an excellent memorial piece on austin360.

Adolph Hofner: Czech Texan Western Swing

Adolph Hofner (1916-2000) was, along with Bob Wills, Milton Brown, and others, one of the principal exponents of Western Swing, a highly syncretic style of music that evolved in Texas during the 1930s. I first heard him and his group, the Texans, doing "Gulf Coast Special", on OKeh Western Swing (highly recommended if you can find a copy) back in the 1980s. I later acquired a copy of South Texas Swing, which includes examples of Hofner's work with various groups, ranging from 1936 to the early '50s. Among the cuts is Hofner's classic version of "Cotton-Eyed Joe", along with the Mexican-influenced "Maria Elena", and such typical Western Swing fare as "Better Quit it Now", "Dirty Dog", and "Joe Turner Blues", which reflect in varying degrees the country, jazz, blues, and Hawaiian influences on that style of music. What surprised me on this album were the cuts, such as Star Kovarna, Na Marjanse, and Strashidlo, that are adaptations of Czech folk songs Hofner no doubt learned from his parents and other Czech immigrants in his hometown of Moulton, Texas, and are sung in Czech. An excellent biography of Hofner is on this website.

Chanukah on the Chisholm Trail.

Captain Smartypants and the boys do a little country 'n' eastern, working in a tradition begun by the great Kinkster (caution--lyrics of Kinky's song below are NSFW):


A tip o' the hat to Andy Bachenheimer.

Is corporate greenery undemocratic?

Since the news about the TXU deal came out, I've been waiting for the "conservative" reaction. It came on February 28 in this article, by Howard Husock of the Manhattan Institute, on the op-ed page of the New York Sun.

TXU, the holding company controlling the largest electric utility in Texas, is being acquired by a group of investors that includes Goldman Sachs, KKR and Texas Pacific Group. Most of TXU's generating capacity consists of plants that burn the relatively low quality lignite coal that is plentiful and cheaply surface-mined in Texas. Coal burning power plants are a major source of carbon dioxide emissions; lignite burning plants are especially so because more of it must be burned to produce a BTU of energy than of higher quality coal. Lignite is also "dirtier" in other respects, producing more particulate matter, mercury and NOx emissions than other kinds of coal (see here).

Before the deal was negotiated, TXU had announced an ambitious expansion program, based on its projections of demand growth, which would include building eleven new coal-fired generating plants. Not surprisingly, this program was opposed by environmentalist groups, as well as by the neighboring state of Oklahoma. The investor group seeking to buy TXU decided to negotiate with these groups before completing the terms of the purchase, hoping to avoid efforts to derail the deal that would be expensive and time-consuming for the buyers. They reached an agreement under which they promised that, if they acquired TXU, they would build only three of the eleven planned new plants, and would cooperate with efforts to develop federal and state legislation governing carbon emissions and energy efficiency.

So, from a "conservative", free-market perspective, what's not to like about this deal? It's the result of negotiations freely entered into between private parties, with those on one side of the table evidently believing that it will maximize the value of a very large investment. It could even be said to be a demonstration of the Coase Theorem, beloved of free market theorists, in action.

Mr. Husock makes a clever move; a bit of intellectual JuJitsu. He frames the issue in such a way as to make the deal appear suspect from a left-of-center perspective. Note the headline on his article: "Privatization of Politics". Privatization is an off-color word in left-liberal* circles, while politics is celebrated as the arena in which the people's will can be made manifest. Privatization of politics therefore connotes a double whammy. The substance of Mr. Husock's argument is this: the question whether the public interest is better served by building eleven power plants to meet projected demand growth or by reducing carbon dioxide and other pollutant emissions while promoting energy efficiency and alternative sources is a question of public policy. Decisions on such matters "should not be made in the private arena, but in the public realm by elected officials."

Mr. Husock then notes in dismay the particular vulnerability of consumer products manufacturers and distributors to the influence of advocacy organizations that may threaten or incite consumer boycotts to force the companies to modify their practices. He specifically mentions pressure brought on Home Depot by the Rainforest Coalition to deal only with suppliers who engage in "eco-friendly logging practices", on Wal-Mart by Wal-Mart Watch to provide health insurance for employees, and on Nike by Vietnam Labor Watch to enforce standards concerning the treatment of its suppliers' workers. Mr. Husock carefully states that he doesn't mean to imply that reducing carbon emissions, protecting rain forests or providing health care coverage and other benefits to workers is in each instance the wrong policy choice. He only objects to the "undemocratic" way the choices are, or might be, made.

But, in each instance, hasn't a choice been made, opposition or not, pressure or not? To consider the case of TXU, a decision to build eleven power plants is as much a public policy decision, by which I mean simply a policy decision that affects the public, as one to forego building eight of them while pursuing alternatives. Mr. Husock might argue that TXU's directors, in deciding to pursue the building program, did not consider issues of public policy but only sought to do what their fiduciary duty to shareholders requires them to do: maximize share value. Might they, however, guided by the same principle, have decided otherwise? Utilities have, in the past, erred in projecting demand by simply extrapolating existing trends, and, as a result, built excessive capacity which caused them to incur unnecessary costs. Might the directors also have concluded, even absent active opposition by environmentalists to the expansion program, that in view of present uncertainties a more cautious approach was in the company's best interests? Are shareholder interests always best served by directors and managers who take the most aggressive possible position on all questions concerning expansion, environmental matters, employee relations, product safety and the like? Efforts by government to circumscribe the discretion of corporate boards and management, even when ostensibly meant to protect shareholders, have been regarded very skeptically by conservatives.

In any event, the private equity investors seeking to buy TXU from its shareholders had no fiduciary duty to those shareholders. It was the duty of TXU's directors to protect the shareholders by evaluating the offer and advising shareholders if they considered it fair, which they did.

"Yes," Mr. Husock might say, "but if it weren't for those pesky environmentalists, the investors would likely have gone ahead with the program as planned, instead of gutting it. In any event, the Governor of Texas evidently wanted those plants built, and built fast, because he directed a state agency to expedite the process of approving them." Nevertheless, the government of Texas, like that of all other states and the federal government, has a tripartite structure characterized by separation of powers and "checks and balances". As Mr. Husock notes in his article, "America has elaborate political and regulatory arenas in which to referee disputes about costs, benefits, and values." All the environmentalists (and the state of Oklahoma, itself a political entity) have done in this instance is to enter those "arenas" to state their case, as is their right under the "redress of grievances" provisions of both the U.S. and Texas constitutions, as well as the "freedom of speech" clause of the First Amendment. If this is "undemocratic", it is so only to the extent that constitutional bills of rights limit the powers of democratically elected governments to oppress or silence individuals or groups.

Groups such as the Rainforest Coalition and Wal-Mart Watch, which seek to mobilize consumers or investors to influence business decisions, also have the constitutional protection of speech afforded by the First Amendment. Mr. Husock might respond that he is not advocating the abridgment of these groups' rights, just arguing that directors, managers and investors should always ignore them. Perhaps he has in mind the well-known observation by Adam Smith about "those who affect to trade for the public good." Nevertheless, might it not be possible that a business decision that happens to comport with the goals of an advocacy organization would also be in the best interests of the owners of the business, and not an affectation?

Addendum: Keifus (see "comments" below) notes his disagreement with the conclusions drawn in the article to which I linked above for the Adam Smith quote. I linked to that article just because it was the only source for that quote that I found in my Google search that had the quote up in the first sentence. I haven't read the whole article, but I suspect I would agree with Keifus.

Second addendum: I'm having second thoughts about my claim that the TXU deal may represent an application of the Coase Theorem, at least to the extent that the opponents of the expansion program use statutes such as the Clean Air Act, or state analogues thereto, as grounds for their opposition, because such statutes or regulations may be considered an ex ante allocation of property rights. I don't think this does serious damage to my basic argument.

**********
*I've used the hyphenated term "left-liberal" here to mean what "liberal" has come to mean in present day American political discourse with respect to economic issues, i.e. one who believes that government should intervene in the working of markets to pursue objectives of safety and fairness. This is as opposed to the classical definition of liberal, which now has given way to "libertarian", a political category that is generally considered "conservative" (although there are those who call themselves "left libertarians"), despite the differences libertarians have with classical, or "Burkean" conservatives and with the more radical social conservatives found on the "religious right". This is why I put "conservative" in quotation marks in the first and fourth paragraphs of this post.

I think the authors of the Political Compass have it correctly: political positions cannot be described on a linear left-right axis. Instead, they should be measured on two axes. One measures attitudes on social issues, with extreme authoritarianism ("fascism") at one end and rampant libertarianism ("anarchism") at the other. The other measures economic views, with communism at the extreme left and "neo-liberalism" (basically laisser-faire) at the extreme right. As a result, the political position of any individual or party can be shown as a pair of Cartesian coordinates falling into one of four quadrants defined by the two axes. An example, plotting the positions of British political parties in the most recent election, is here. I chose this example because it includes examples in all four quadrants. My own position is in the lower right quadrant. I'm about as far down on the social axis, i.e. tending towards anarchism, as the British Greens, and slightly to the right on the economic axis, a bit to the left of the Liberal Democrats.

Silly science Saturday.

Going through today's New York Times, I saw two items that led to the caption of this post. The first takes us, once again, to the Texas legislature. Lest it appear that I'm being unduly harsh to the Lone Star State, though, please note that the mischief here originated in the state of Georgia, with an organization called The Fair Education Foundation, Inc. (see here). What FEF is about is trying to get evolution banned from classrooms because it is based on religion; therefore, teaching it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. Others have made similar arguments, claiming that "scientism", "evolutionism" or "Darwinism" constitutes a "religion" because it rests upon unproven dogma that can only be affirmed through an act of faith. FEF, however, argues that the religious foundations of evolution are in the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. FEF doesn't cite any Kabbalistic underpinnings for Darwinian natural selection beyond the fact that rabbinical "sages" who contributed to the Kabbalah tradition, in their exegeses of Torah texts, made calculations of the time elapsed since the beginning of creation that anticipated, and are in striking accord with, estimates by modern cosmologists of time elapsed since the "big bang". By positing that the universe has been around for billions of years, instead of the mere six thousand it is constrained to by the exegesis of Genesis that FEF prefers, the Kabbalists and their cosmologist heirs allow sufficient time for evolution to have produced the flora and fauna we have today. Unstated in this argument, but hinted at because he is mentioned in the FEF text, is that Arno Penzias, a co-discoverer, along with his co-worker Robert Wilson, with whom he shared a Nobel Prize, of the cosmic background microwave radiation that evidences the big bang, is an observant Jew.

Incidentally, FEF doesn't stop at seeking to bar the teaching of evolution. They also want to throw out Copernicus. One thing you can say for them is that they have no use for dispensational millenialism, or, if you prefer, pre-millenialism (see here), so they give the back of the hand to Tim LaHaye fans. Unfortunately, they also are Holocaust deniers. Update: when I posted this nine years ago I had links to pages of the FEF website citing Kabbalah and denying Copernicus and the Holocaust. I see now that those pages are no longer accessible, although the one about pre-millenialism is still there.

Anyway, Ben Bridges, a member of the Georgia legislature, produced a one page memorandum summarizing FEF's constitutional argument against the teaching of evolution and distributed it to his colleagues. He also sent a copy to Warren Chisum, the second most powerful member of the Texas House of Representatives, who had it copied and distributed to his fellow legislators. When some of them complained about its substance, Mr. Chisum distanced himself from it, saying that the memo "does not reflect my opinion", and also that he regretted having "hurt or offended some groups including some of my dear friends." He also retained a former legislative colleague, Steven Wolens, who is Jewish, to help with damage control.

Making fun of FEF and its ilk has a fish-in-a-barrel quality (though it's sometimes irresistable), and it's hard to give any credence to the notion that such groups pose any serious threat, especially when we consider recent developments in Kansas. However, the other item that got my attention this morning is, I think, a real and insidious threat, having been endorsed by perhaps the pre-eminent figure in American pop culture. It's described in Maureen Dowd's column, which has the irresistable title, "A Giant Doom Magnet".

The column is about Oprah's latest fave rave: an Australian TV producer named Rhonda Byrne's book, The Secret. If you guessed (you being part of that infinitesimal minority of people who don't watch Oprah) that this is a text that gives you a simple principle by virtue of which you can transform your presently dreary life for the better, bingo. All one need do, saith Ms. Byrne, is to think positive thoughts, and good things will follow. If you're sufficiently into geezerdom, like me, this may strike a mystic chord of memory reaching back to a 1952 opus by The Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, as Dowd notes. If you're a student of modern European intellectual history, it may remind you of this worthy thinker.

According to Ms. Byrne, the converse also holds: negative thoughts beget negative results. Ms. Dowd's title for her column refelects her realization that her negative thoughts about the Bush administration's actions in Iraq serve to amplify the negativity of those actions.

According to Ms. Byrne's acolyte James Arthur Ray, interviewed by Oprah, this is all "very, very scientific." So was phrenology considered, in its time.

"Um, Claude," I can almost hear you, my faithful reader, saying, "what about that 'snark-free' guarantee you proffered in your last post?" What can I say? So sue me.

Addendum: I hate to take issue with a friend, but Rundeep's comment on this post compels me to say this: I love Texas. Yes, I love it in spite of its perhaps greater than average quotient of jingoistic and ultra-fundamentalist nutjobs. I love it for the likes of Ann Richards (see here), Barbara Jordan, and Molly Ivins (see here), as well as for having gotten drunk a few times with Kinky Friedman (see here) (who could sometimes be an asshole, but was always interesting) and Jim Hightower (see here) (who was always a gentleman, but never dull), and for having (at a fundraiser for Jim at the old Lone Star Cafe on 5th Avenue, when he was running for Chair of the Texas Railroad Commission) danced the "Cotton-Eyed Joe" with Cissy Farenthold (see here) and twenty or so other of her nearest and dearest friends. I love it for Terry Allen, Archie Bell and the Drells, Asleep at the Wheel, the Austin Lounge Lizards, the Big Bopper, Guy Clark, Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys, Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, Freddy Fender, Nanci Griffith, Carolyn Hester, Adolph Hofner, Buddy Holly, Lightnin' Hopkins, Flaco Jimenez, Janis Joplin, the Light Crust Doughboys (especially John "Knocky" Parker), Augie Meyer, Mouse and the Traps, Doug Sahm, Joe Tex, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Townes Van Zandt, Willie and Waylon and Jerry Jeff, and Bob Wills. I love it for Larry McMurtry. I love it for having spent a couple of formative years in San Antonio when my dad was stationed there in the Air Force, where my Pennsylvania bred mom learned to buy fresh tamales, wrapped in cornhusks, and serve them to us for dinner once a week, and where my fourth birthday present was a Billy the Kid outfit from Joske's.

Goodbye, Molly.

I recently had occasion to quote from an article by Molly Ivins. Today, she lost her fight with breast cancer.

Texas has now lost two great women in the space of six months.

Possibly the greatest legislative speech ever made.

Every time I despair of the mess in Albany (and right now I'm skeptical of Spitzer's ability to make good on his promised reforms, at least so long as Joe Bruno and Shelly Silver keep their leadership posts in the Senate and Assembly, respectively), I can cheer myself up a bit by thinking of Texas. Kevin, a Canadian expat in Tokyo, put a link in his blog, The Woodshed, here, to a story about a Texas legislator who wants to allow blind people to hunt game with rifles. Stories like this bring to my mind an aritcle Molly Ivins wrote for The Atlantic back in the 1970s, titled "Inside the Austin Fun House", which described some of the wackier goings-on in the Texas "Lege". Included in the piece was the text, in full, of a speech on the floor of the Texas Senate in support of a bill to increase the tax on liquor by ten cents a bottle. It went approximately as follows:

Gentlemens, I wants you to imagine yourselves goin' to the store to buy yourselves a bottle. And on your way to the store, this little child comes up to you, and he says, "Mister, can you buy me a lollipop?" And you says, "Naw, son, I cain't buy you no lollipop." And you goes into the store and buys your bottle, and you pays your extra ten cents tax. Ain't nobody yet ever paid what it's really worth. And you says to yourself, "If I can afford an extra ten cents for this bottle of liquor, I can afford to buy that little child a lollipop." So, gentlemens, I asks for your vote on this bill, for the sake of the children of Texas.

All in all, an elegant rejoinder to Amity Shlaes' screed against Pigovian taxes, don't you think?

Ann Richards, 1933-2006

Back when she was governor, Ann Richards had the duty of speaking to a group of state insurance regulators who were meeting in Houston. Also in the audience were many representatives of the insurance industry and their lawyers, myself included in the last category. It was, I suppose, a fairly standard Ann Richards speech, laced with Texan expansiveness but leavened by self-deprecating humor. At one point, she suggested the need for greater government oversight of some aspect of the business. There was a moment of dead silence, then one man started clapping loudly. "You're a lo-o-o-nely fellow," she said.

Given the drift of Texas politics over the years since she left office, one might suppose she spent her later years as a lonely woman. But the progressive tradition in Texas is still very much alive. Ann Richards embodied much of what is great about a great state.

9/18 update: Interesting and amusing reminisences of Ann's post-gubernatorial days by a man who served as her personal assistant, in a blog called In the Pink Texas.