The Texas Observer

As you may have heard, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, having aced his merit badge in self-hairstyling, has waded into the treacherous waters of ostensible authorship with On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For. The book, a bit astoundingly, debuted at #1 on the Washington Post bestseller list Monday (according to a press release paid for by Texans for Rick Perry), and it may have received a boost — in the lucrative homophobe market, anyhow — from a Sunday New York Times Magazine interview with the governor by a clearly astounded Deborah Solomon, excerpted below.

Solomon: On My Honor “draws on your experience as an Eagle Scout and champions the values of the Boy Scouts of America, to whom you are donating your royalties.”

Perry: “Yes, to their legal defense fund.”

Solomon: “Which has been fighting the A.C.L.U., to keep gays out of the scouts. Why do you see that as a worthy cause?”

Perry: “I am pretty clear about this one. Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation.”

Solomon: “Why do you think a homosexual would be more likely to bring the subject of sex into a conversation than a heterosexual?”

Perry: “Well, the ban in scouting applies to scout leaders. When you have a clearly open homosexual scout leader, the scouts are going to talk about it. And they’re not there to learn about that. They’re there to learn about what it means to be loyal and trustworthy and thrifty.”

Solomon: “But don’t you think that homosexuals might also be interested in being loyal and thrifty?”

Perry: “The argument that gets made is that homosexuality is about sex. Do you agree?”

Solomon: “No”

Perry: “Well, then, why don’t they call it something else?”

Like what, absurd reductivism?

We will let the governor — famously and a bit tiresomely both an Eagle Scout and the father of an Eagle Scout, and not even in the least tiny bit gay — slide on his title’s sentence-ending preposition (his grammar badge must be pending). But there’s no getting past the wrongheadedness of his message, which seems to be something along the lines of gay people are obsessed with sex and if they’re allowed anywhere near impressionable young minds, then you don’t even want to know what tomorrow’s Webelos will be doing after school in the garage with all those fancy knots.

That message wasn’t lost on Equality Texas, which Tuesday issued a statement decrying Perry’s narrowminded bigotry and — gotcha! — unseemly preoocupation with sex. The group invites gay scouts to attend Perry’s three scheduled Texas booksignings this week.

in case you’re interested, that’s Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Border’s Books in San Antonio; Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. at BookPeople in Austin; and Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:30 at Borders Books in Dallas. Expect to find Perry set up at a signing table in the farthest possible corner from the Gay & Lesbian Literature section. Because you know, you can catch those cooties just by breathing too deeply in their proximity.

And Perry should know. Rumors about his own possibly closeted orientation have circulated for years, prompting the governor in 2004 to take the extraordinary step of denying them publicly.

So far no one has been cynical enough to suggest that the Perry book’s square-jawed broadside at the gay and gay-friendly communities is perhaps nothing more than a self-serving bulwark against that very rumor, which bulwark might come in handy if those other rumors — of Perry’s ambition for national office — ever turn out to be true.

But finally, lest mockery get the best of us, let’s pause just a moment to credit Gov. Perry for not encouraging his dog to write a book, as other governors have done. We all know what dogs have on their dirty little dog brains, and it’s certainly not loyalty and trust. And we’re pretty sure there’s no merit badge for it, either.

It’s hardly SXSW, but working press arrived in their media corral to find not one but TWO free shwag bags of give-away goodies, one orange and one white. Ever wondered about the perks of being a high-powered political reporter? Now ya know:

(1) LBJ School of Public Affairs Media Expert Guide

(1) folder full of UT fact sheets

(1) UT mouse pad: “What Starts Here Changes the World”

(1) 2005 Longhorn National Championship CD visor and organizer

(1) burnt orange T-shirt: “Clinton - Obama Democratic Presidential Debate February 21, 2008″

(1) black pleather UT paper pad and pen

(1) UT “Super Grabber,” which, according to the tag, “Wraps Around Just About Anything.” We thought that’s what hands were for. Wrap your head around that.

(1) packet of Ladybird Johnson wildflower seeds

(1) plastic UT luggage tag

(1) UT lapel pin

(1) Thursday night live music fact sheet

(1) Dell ballpoint pen (1) bag of austinuts Lone Star Nut mix

(1) Book People bumper sticker

(1) Keep Austin Weird bumper sticker

(1) Official Austin Visitor’s Guide

(1) bottle purified Austin drinking water

(1) gel-pack of tri-berry energy gel

(1) gel-pack of vanilla bean energy gel

(1) pecan praline

(1) greeting note from Austin Mayor Will Wynne

(1) “One Big Debate” notepad

(1) live music capital of the world CD compilation

Now back to J-school with you, young strivers. Someday this could all be yours.

This is just too precious. John Wilder, the (former) CEO of TXU, is now, after the sale of his former employer, unemployed and $270 million richer. With time on his hands and money to burn, Wilder has come up with a “life list,” what mere mortals refer to as a “to-do list.” Seriously, the Dallas Morning News reported on it earlier today. Here’s Wilder’s list, with some suggestions from us in italics:

• Get passionate about a specific cause, work on it over the long term and measure progress to see if improvements are being made instead of just thinking about it or contributing money to it.

We agree with this one. Greed is good… But giving back is better. So why not take all us regular folk, your loyal customers, out for an ice-cream soda? Or better yet, how about taking up the cause of the working class in Texas who are getting hammered by high electricity rates? We can fit you for an “Eat the Rich” shirt and send you down to the Lege to lobby for consumer rights.

• Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure to use it.

You’ve already mastered the foreign language of corporate double-speak and you’ve certainly shown us you know how to use it.

• Read the Bible cover to cover.

Good choice, but I would skip over all the rich-man-camel-eye-of-needle stuff. You also might take a pass at all that jazz about the meek and poor inheriting the earth. The Jesus lectures are kind of a drag too.

• Sit on a jury.

John, the American justice system requires a “jury of your peers,” not a “jury of your betters.” Too bad you weren’t available for Kenny Boy’s trial.

• Rent a rustic lake cabin and take my younger son to water ski; I’ve not been very good at that over the last few years. I’m also considering renting a houseboat to stay on the lake for a full week.

Renting a houseboat? For a week? On the lake? Wow, if I had $270 million, I wouldn’t be slumming it. I’d buy a yacht with a lake on it, fill it full of money, and go swimming.

• Learn to ballroom dance (Susan’s goal, not mine, but I’m agreeing).

You’ve mastered the Limbo - how low can you go?

• Ride a camel in the desert (probably not the camel’s goal; we’ll see if he’s agreeing).

He agrees that a middle-aged American man in an expensive business suit crossing numerous time zones in a personal jet in order to fulfill some corner-office daydream fantasy of riding a camel is a little weird.

• Attend the Olympics, hopefully the one in China.

We hear they’ve added a new sport, the Utility CEO Sprint - a 100 meter dash from the SEC.

• Write thank-you letters to people who have meant a lot to me over the years: coaches, teachers, bosses, etc.

Don’t forget all the little peoplewho made you rich - Walter in Dallas who sacrificed his prescription medication one month so he could pay his utility bill. And Francis in Waco, the grandmother of five who stuck with TXU even though her electricity bill doubled in two years. And the Johnson family in Nacogdoches, who generously went without heat this winter so they could keep up their monthly payments. God bless ‘em, every one!

…I have no doubt that it is the richest country in the world good land and plenty of timber and the best springs and good mill streams good range and clear water and ever appearances of good health and game plenty it is in the pass where the buffalo passes from north to south twice a year and bees and honey plenty… I have taken the oath of the government and have enrolled my name as a volunteer…

–Davy Crockett, in an 1836 letter to his daughter, shortly before the Battle of the Alamo

Sentiments so warmly expressed will bring a smile to even the hardest Texan heart. But these are the musings of a uniquely Texan kind of hero. Most biographies you’ll find on the web and elsewhere mention the January 9, 1836 letter. It was written shortly before Crockett made it to San Antonio de Bexar — and it is the last evidence we have of Crockett praising the beauties of revolutionary Texas before his death at the Alamo.

Unfortunately, Texas myth and Texas fact are often hard to tear asunder. And I know that as you read this, that terrible ‘king of the wild frontier’ song that accompanied the 1955 Disney movie is pounding in your head. Fact is, no one really knows if Crockett died at the Alamo or was captured and executed.

Amazon tells us: Disney’s popular action-adventure inspired millions of children to sport coonskin caps and sing “The Ballad Of Davy Crockett,” which topped the nation’s hit list for 13 weeks! What a country.

In any case, as you may have heard, Texas is paying nearly $500,000 for what the Simpson Galleries of Houston says is the long lost original version of the letter. Regardless of its authenticity, the letter’s contents, including its lack of punctuation and glowing praise for the Lone Star State are not in question.

The problem is, there are few misspellings in the state’s new letter. The signature reportedly does not match those of other legitimate Crockett documents. Several experts have said the Simpson Galleries letter is probably a copy — made contemporaneously, but not probably penned by Crockett (and thus not quite worth 500 Large).

Debbi Head, a communications specialist with the Commission says there’s no need to worry about the state paying so much for something that isn’t real, however. The money is in escrow for 120 days while Texas has a third-party team determine the letter’s authenticity. “Anytime something of this importance comes up, there are going to be a lot of questions,” she said. “We’re putting together a team and a process” and, she said, they’ll do “whatever it takes.”

The lack of misspellings is what seems to be driving the doubters. Crockett was no grad student. Really. According to his biographers, he spent more time in Andrew Jackson’s army fighting the Creek Indians than he did in school. So book learning weren’t necessarily his thing. But, given the nature of the letter, he may have been the first modernist writer.

The clamoring of the phrases one against another, the lack of commas, periods, or initial capitals — indeed, the whole feverish ‘I love Texas’ rhythm of the letter suggests an anticipation of the stream-of-consciousness fad that coursed through literature from Joyce to Hemingway in the last century (which academia now lumps together as ‘modernism’). Of course, one could also look at the letter and say that Crockett simply had a problem with run-on sentences. It’s cool. Everybody’s a critic in the Internet Age.

Regardless of the letter’s authenticity, its purchase by the state and this new round of Crockett wonder has been worthwhile — even if it only reminds us of the politics surrounding the Texas revolution. One biography notes that Crockett’s departure for Texas had much to do with him breaking with the policies and Democratic Party molded by Jackson. Crockett became a Whig for the rest of his life, we are told, and his appointment with the Alamo had much to do with the fact that he did not want to join General Sam Houston because Houston was a Jackson man — Crockett preferred the company of Col. William Travis in San Antonio — a fellow Whig. Cripes, where are the Whigs when you need them anyway?

At bottom, the question remains: does it matter whether Davy wrote this particular letter? Not really, since the state’s experts will undoubtedly find out (and if he did not, the state will get its money back) We should have some answers on that score within a couple months. The real value of all this is reliving a fairly unique moment in history (and perhaps the resurgence of the popularity of the coonskin cap).

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Some good theater could be had this morning on the streets surrounding the Fort Worth Convention Center where the presidential straw poll was set to take place.

David Hall of Fort Worth rigged up a replica Liberty Bell on a trailer that he parked in front of the convention center. He claims it’s the nation’s only traveling replica Liberty Bell. All morning, delegates rang the bell in honor of fallen U.S. soldiers. The trailer was covered in Ron Paul signs, though Hall said he wasn’t endorsing any candidate.

The Paul supporters swarmed all over the convention; Ron Paul t-shirts and posters are everywhere you look. How many of these folks are actually voting delegates is anyone’s guess. One wonders, if Paul, an anti-war candidate, wins the Texas straw poll by a wide-majority, which would it worry more, the GOP or the pundits?

Meanwhile, the anti-war rally was a washout, literally. Rain began to fall about half an hour before the planned mid-day “peace rally.” Several hundred bedraggled activists gathered across the street from the convention center listening to reggae music.

Despite the poor turnout, there were a few golden moments of interaction between the anti-war activists and the GOP delegates. A group of the “peace police” — decked out in bright pink police uniforms and dragging around a person in prison garb and a President Bush mask — marched around downtown. They stopped for lunch at a Corner Bakery, and their entrance elicited looks of horror from the business-attired Republicans eating sandwiches.

The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club held an … interesting, coattails-riding press conference today. At a locally owned Austin theater, the enviros used the premier of the Simpsons movie to protest plans to build more nuclear plants in Texas.

For at least a year, Texas green groups have been playing off the poor reputation of the Springfield nuclear power plant. A year ago, the line was: ““Do we really want to rely on Homer Simpson technology in making our choices about energy production?” This afternoon, the fliers being handed out to movie-goers at the Alamo Drafthouse said, “Don’t let Texas’ STNP & Comanche Peak make more fish like Blinky!”

Blinky would be the famous three-eyed fish spawned by the polluted waters around Mr. Burns’s plant. You can see him in the picture on the right, just behind Cyrus Reed, who braved the TV interviews today and worked last session as a lobbyist for the Lone Star Chapter. Other members of the chapter wore Simpsons masks and made themselves available for interviews, as well.

STNP is the South Texas Nuclear Project, an over-budget and oft-delayed fiasco down in Bay City. Last year, some new owners of STNP announced plans to drop $5 billion on two new reactors (for a total of four) at the site. Groups like those out today, which also included Public Citizen and Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Corporation, argued against any new projects on the grounds that nuclear power: is not safe because of the threat of accidents and terrorism; produces waste for which there is still no safe disposal; and is costly, when that money could be better spent on less risky measures that also reduce greenhouse gases.

For more, including the huge role federal incentive money plays in making nuclear energy profitable, see this informative Austin Chronicle article from last year, which lays out the claims of Texas environmental groups in detail.

Turns out the weird stuff that happened at a couple dueling U.S. Senate press conferences earlier this month was, in fact, just a coincidence. Back then, we noticed two guys offering what seemed to be aggressively partisan lines of questioning at media gaggles for State Rep. Rick Noriega and for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. But, it looks like we can consign the conspiracy theories back to spiral-bound notebooks.

Some nifty work by a reader tracked down the identity of the day’s first reporter, who pressed Noriega on questions about immigration and impeaching the president. His name is Phil Archer, and he’s a veteran TV guy KRPC-TV in Houston, a job he’s held down for about 30 years.

Still no word on the reporter who lauded Cornyn for standing up to Rove.