Monday Thoughts: Austin, Texas Y’all

We like our Flags big too.

As most of the readers know, I live in Austin, Texas.  I consider Texas to be a pretty alright place mostly.  I grew up here, and I think it has a lot to offer.  So I’m typically pretty quick to defend my home state.  However, I’ve come to a recent conclusion that I am mostly defending Austin and not Texas.  It’s often as if this place isn’t even part of Texas really.

UPDATE:  Ron Paul continues to make me happy in his craziness.  Secession = Patriotism.  View the video after the jump.  The comedy central author’s (I know he’s a jokester) response shows the feeling that many non-Texans have towards our state.

This place is an oasis really.  Election maps show an island of blue amongst a sea of red (not that that is THE reason it’s an oasis).  Everyone in Austin seems to be pretty chill and have a good grasp of reality.  Not that there isn’t that fair share of crazy hippy, neo-cons, fixies, bikers, frat boys, and so on and so forth.  Perhaps, it’s that fair share of everything that makes it such a great place to me.  Good people, fun things to do and endless opportunity.

The rest of Texas, however, is constantly disappointing me though.  I’m not sure I can give you all the stats, because there are far too many.  I’ll give you some recent events that happened in our great state that irk me and often leave me speechless that people in our state can be so…ignorant.

I’ll start with Rick Perry.  Last week he managed to talk about Texas secession possibilities at the tea parties here in Texas, so that he was blazoned all over CNN.  The speech makes me shudder and I cannot believe this man is at the head of our State.  You can’t just mention things like that and expect no recourse.  I’m not sure what this does for his career, but I believe it might just mean the end for this guy.  At least I hope so.  Check out the pump up speech below.  I especially like how he talks about our awesomeness, but obviously fails to mention our abysmal education standards and terribly high teen-pregnancy rates.  Go Rick!

Texas and it’s crazy death penalty is another one that blows my mind.  We execute so many people in this state, it’s ridiculous.   In fact, we’ve already executed 13 in 2009.  Not only that, but the whole higher level judiciary system here is just terrible.  We have a judge who is lovingly known as Killer Keller. This women has sentenced enough people to death that she has managed to get the nickname “Killer.”  Lovely.  The most standout case is the one of Michael Richard.

On Sept 25, 2007, Keller said “We close at 5″ and refused to accept an appeal from the attorneys of Michael Richard, who was scheduled for execution at 6pm that night. The U.S. Supreme Court had decided at around 10am that morning to accept a case from Kentucky (Baze v Rees) in order to rule on the constitutionality of the method of lethal injection as a means of carrying out executions. Richards attorneys had to rewrite their appeal to incorporate the issue of the constitutionality of lethal injection. They had a computer problem and called the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to ask for an extra 20 minutes to submit their re-written appeal. Keller said “We close at 5″ and refused. Richard was executed later that night after the U.S. Supreme Court was unable to issue a stay, because there had been no final decision at the state-level court. If Keller had not refused to accept the appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court could have issued a stay. Richard was the last person executed in the United States before the start of a de facto moratorium on executions pending the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Baze case.

It should be noted that the moratorium was later lifted, but the way the case was handled was completely and utterly unethical.  She wasn’t even the judge residing on the case and she wasn’t even at the courthouse at the time (waiting on the repairman at home).  I just can’t believe this happened.  She went home early on a day she knew there was an execution scheduled and that there might be an appeal.  Then she refused to extend the deadline of a man on death row by a mere 20 minutes.

Finally, the Texas Board of Education.  As many of you know, this is a favorite topic of ours here.  We are firm believers in science, but unfortunately our education board isn’t quite on the same page.  They have consistently fought for inclusion of intelligent design (no matter how unscientific) in science classes.  The most recent standards would have required classroom discussion of the weaknesses of evolution as an explanation of how we got here.  Thankfully, that didn’t pass (not for lack of trying…it was a tie).  Ars Technica has a great article on the assault that TSBE has made on science.

I know this was quite a rant on Texas, but after some reflection I can see how the outside world sees us all as crazys.  I just hope that people know that Austin is quite different and definitely the only place I can see myself in Texas.  Not that other cities don’t have something to offer, but Austin has so much life and music and diversity that when you are here, you could never guess you were in Texas.  Wandering the streets at night is an adventure in people watching and dining and entertainment opportunities are everywhere.  People have that Southern hospitality, but there is something…hippy-ish about it that just makes it a little more interesting.   I’m certain Texas will always hold a dear spot in my heart (it’s the only place I’ve lived after all), but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be more “Austin” than “Texas.