ustxtxb_obs_2010_06_25_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES SINCE 1954 OBSERVER IALOGUE Cuts to the Bone SOUNDS GREAT, TODD. DEFINITELY CANCEL THEIR health insurance. Glenda Boozer HOUSTON OUR LEGISLATORS DON’T MAKE HARDLY ANYTHING now; that is not the place to cut unless you want more people running only to become highly paid lobbyists later. Gary Denton LAPORTE Soul Seeking WOW, THAT WAS QUITE AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE NEUROscientist at Baylor looking for evidence of the soul supergenius! Janet Kelso NEW BRAUNFELS SOUNDS TO ME LIKE A FUNDAMENTALIST HIDING IN SCIentist’s robes. He claims to reject fundamentalism, religion, atheism and agnosticism. Yet he looks for the soul. That’s hypocritical. He hides behind the made up title of “Possiblian” so he can duck both sides. Religious claims of the existence of a soul cannot be proven, or disproven, by science. Why spend that much money on useless causes? Karen Wheeler BIG SPRING THE FACT THAT NO EXPLANATIONS YOU’VE FOUND SO FAR work for you doesn’t make it hypocritical to keep looking for other answers. That’s what humans do; we look for answers. Whether we find them, or even whether we can find them, is irrelevant to our need to look. Suzanne Lander AUSTIN THERE’S A SEEKER BORN EVERY MINUTE. Cheryl Fillekes POSTED OF FACEBOOK Parenting Rap I READ WITH AMUSEMENT AND AMAZEMENT THE QUOTE by Jane Barstain of the Center for Public Policy Priorities about the problems facing impoverished prevent this from happening in the future, what you need to do is address the underlying problem, and the underlying problem is that Texas does not provide adequate social services and resources to lowincome families, especially those who are working.” No Jane, the underlying problem is that people who shouldn’t be having children because they can’t afford them, and do not have enough personal responsibility to care for them, are having children. Perhaps your organization could be more effective by advocating more counseling for young people regarding birth control and responsibilities relating to children, rather than criticizing the state for not throwing money around. While I am saddened for the child’s sake, I just can’t fathom a person at 19 years old being financially secure enough, or mature enough, to be having babies. Alan Hebzynski SOUTH TEXAS How JUDGMENTAL AND SIMPLEMINDED! SINCE 19-YEARolds are not financially equipped to care for children and shouldn’t be having babies, do you also agree that they shouldn’t be having sex? Or do you abide by the notion that birth control measures never fail? Or perhaps what birth control can’t fix can be dealt with through an abortion? This young woman didn’t have any parenting herself. They did not help her learn how to maintain any healthy relationships in her life, much less the sexual ones. And do you really think they discussed birth control with her? And if not her parents, who else? In Texas it certainly won’t be the schools. These are the people that can be given help with the goal of getting them to stand on their own feet. Kendal Morrow DENTON Sound Off editors@texasobserver. org VOLUME 102, NO. 12 FOUNDING EDITOR Ronnie Dugger EDITOR Bob Moser MANAGING EDITOR Chris Tomlinson ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Mann CULTURE EDITOR Michael May MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Jen Reel INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Melissa del Bosque STAFF WRITERS Abby Rapoport, Forrest Wilder ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Julia Austin CIRCULATION/OFFICE MANAGER Candace Carpenter ART DIRECTION EmDash LLC WEBMASTER Shane Pearson COPY EDITOR Rusty Todd POETRY EDITOR Naomi Shihab Nye INTERNS Laura Burke, Robert Green, Ann Elise Taylor CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Emily DePrang, Lou Dubose, James K. Galbraith, Steven G. Kellman, Joe R. Lansdale, Robert Leleux, James E. McWilliams, Char Miller, Bill Minutaglio, Ruth Pennebaker, Josh Rosenblatt, Kevin Sieff, Brad Tyer, Andrew Wheat CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jana Birchum, Alan Pogue, Steve Satterwhite CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Michael Krone, Alex Eben Meyer, Ben Sargent TEXAS DEMOCRACY FOUNDATION BOARD Lisa Blue Baron, Carlton Carl, Melissa Jones, Susan Longley, Jim Marston, Mary Nell Mathis, Gilberto Ocarias, Jesse Oliver, Bernard Rapoport, Geoffrey Rips, Geronimo Rodriguez, Sharron Rush, Kelly White, Ronnie OUR MISSION We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy. We will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. How much would we save if we quit paying our legislators \(“Perry’s Budget Mess,” them to keep working hard. Right? Todd Myerscough DALLAS JUNE 25, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11