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A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES SINCE 1954 “. 10/1″14, ir f if :a L411 1711111 AP OBSERVER IALOGUE VOLUME 102, NO. 17 FOUNDING EDITOR Ronnie Dugger EDITOR Bob Moser On the Stump I WAS SWAYING TOWARD WHITE, DESPITE WHAT MAY have been some questionable business deals while he was mayor, until the ads came out that called Perry a coward. You can keep pushing for a debate on the issues or you can go to name-calling. That turned me off from White right there. He didn’t even triple dogdare Perry before calling him a coward. [The ad was run by an indepedent PAC, not the White campaign.] What a schoolyard chump! Alan Hebzynski SOUTH TEXAS IT IS COWARDLY TO REFUSE TO DEBATE. No TWO WAYS about that. And it’s not macho to shoot a coyote while jogging. Bubbha HOUSTON IT’S HARD TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES WHEN YOU ARE THE target of a bunch of bull crap. Who the hell cares what Bill White’s tax returns look like from the Clinton era? Barbara Terry AUSTIN PERRY IS A COWARD. HE KNOWS HE IS NOT KNOWLEDGEABLE or quick enough to debate White. He lacks the knowl edge probably because he only works about 8 hours a week, making public appearances. Patrick Meaney AUSTIN RICK’S GONNA SHOOT THAT OLD BUDGET SHORTFALL, just like he did that coyote. And then he’s gonna skin it and hang it from a lamppost on Congress Avenue. Yee-haa! Dennis Schneider ROUND ROCK I AM CERTAINLY TUNING OUT [OF THE CAMPAIGN] UNTIL they start treating voters like adults and discuss the most important issue out there: the state budget shortfall and how they intend to deal with it. Michael Cosper AUSTIN IN 1979 MOST TEXAS CITIES AND COUNTIES WERE UNDER budget, and property taxes were much lower. Texas home owners are now fleeced with the highest property tax rates in the country. While property tax in the majority of states remains well below 1 percent of property value, Texas property taxes are consistently near or above 2 percent. And it isn’t because Texas levies no state income tax. Florida residents also enjoy no income tax. Jacksonville, Fla., property tax is currently 0.75 percent, while Tarrant County is a whopping 2.34 percent of property value. While Texas’ super conservative Republicans always say that big government taxing and spending is contrary to Texas morals, when it comes to property tax, our honorable Republican governor, representatives and senators have no morals. Leonard Jensen FORT WORTH Fighting Words I FIND MYSELF WONDERING WHY YOU CHOSE TO DO THE pressed to figure out what purpose the article serves you have been roundly “scooped” on this issue by NPR some time ago on “Weekend Edition.” At that time they either did a story on the “fight church” phenomenon or had at least a short mention of this. But they had, I thought, the ultimate summation. One of the two program hosts commented that the fight church was the result of a complete and utter misreading of the gospels of Jesus. Jo Reichler AUSTIN Sound Off MANAGING EDITOR Chris Tomlinson SENIOR EDITORS Dave Mann, Michael May WEB EDITOR Jen Reel INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER Melissa del Bosque STAFF WRITERS Abby Rapoport, Forrest Wilder ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Julia Austin CIRCULATION MANAGER Candace Carpenter OFFICE MANAGER Lorraine Blancarte ART DIRECTION EmDash LLC COPY EDITOR Rusty Todd POETRY EDITOR Naomi Shihab Nye INTERNS Brooke Breitling, Laura Burke, John Eller 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, Matt Wright-Steel 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. All Gov. Rick Perry has to do is hold off two more months, and the election is his \(campaign coverage at www.texasobserver.org would showcase his lack of ability? His Tea Party supporters aren’t going to switch from American Idol and WWF to watch. Their minds are already made up: anybody but a Democrat. In the end, though, what will stop Democratic candidate Bill White’s bid is voter apathy. Too few people know or care about how the governor’s race or any of the other statewide races affect their lives. Sam Davis HOUSTON SEPTEMBER 17, 2010 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11