Left of College Station

Tonight I will again be a co-host of Biased Transmission, a progressive talk radio show which airs on 89.1FM KEOS every Wednesday from 6:00pm – 7:00pm. The guest on tonight’s show will be Professor Nandini Bhattacharya, an English professor and  professor at the Women’s Studies Department at Texas A&M University. This discussion will center on women’s issues and feminism; Professor Bhattacharya will share her insight on feminism both on campus and off.

 

Tonight Ann Preston will be hosting the show, and there will also be other guest host in the booth tonight, Shelly and Vandy, who will soon be hosting their own show about women’s issues and feminism. Tonight’s discussion should be very engaging, and hopefully you will be able to listen and join us at Revolution Café and Bar after the show for debrief and drinks. If you cannot tune into the show tonight the show will be posted online at the Biased Transmission archive, and it will also be posted here at Left of College Station on Sunday.

Tonight I will be a co-host on Biased Transmission, a progressive talk radio show which airs on 89.1FM KEOS every Wednesday from 6:00pm – 7:00pm. Kenneth Michael Absher, a fellow at the Texas A&M University Bush School of Government and Public Service, was scheduled to be a guest on tonight’s show and participate in a discussion about the Bush Administration’s “enhanced interrogation” policies. Absher, who served for over 30 years in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), informed the show that he is “committed to activities that will prevent [him] from being available for an interview on [the] radio show for the foreseeable future”

The discussion will center on the current debate about “enhanced interrogation,” otherwise known as torture. Topics will range from the release of the “torture memos” to the non-release of the torture photographs, the political debate surrounding Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the C.I.A. Also, we will be discussing what constitutes torture, and if it is ever justified. The co-hosts that will be participating in the discussion are Michael Alvard, Ann Preston, and Srikanth Sastry. If you cannot tune into the show tonight the show will be posted online at the Biased Transmission archive, and it will also be posted here at Left of College Station on Sunday.

Political and Social Thought…
to the Left of College Station

The New York Times confirmed through administration officials that President Barack Obama will continue the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, despite suspending the commissions after he was inaugurated in January.

 

President Obama has decided to keep the military commission system that his predecessor created to try suspected terrorists but will ask Congress to expand the rights of defendants to contest the charges against them, officials briefed on the plan said Thursday.

 

According to another article in the New York Times, the upgraded military commissions “would limit the use of hearsay, ban evidence gained from cruel treatment, give defendants more latitude to pick their own lawyers and provide more protection if they do not testify.”

 

Despite the “revamped” commissions this raises questions, and on the heels of decisions to repress photographs depicting torture it appears that the President may not be making as clean a break from the Bush Administration policies as he campaigned. Beyond the civil rights issues of the decision to continue the military commissions there are political issues. President Obama has made it clear that he intends to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, however, as of yet there is no clear plan to how it will be shut down and what will happen with the detainees. Congress has already denied the $80 million that the President has requested to fund closing Guantanamo, and there is increasing political pressure not to allow detainees to be transferred to the United States.

 

The Republicans in Congress has spent much of the last few weeks promoting the idea that if Guantanamo is closed that apparently detainees will be released in the United States. The continued promotion of the generalization that all of the detainees in Guantanamo are the very same people that attacked the United States on September 11^th is ridiculous. Also, there has been the continued use of the debunked idea that there are significant amounts of former Guantanamo detainees that are returning to the battlefield. Since the Bush Administrations characterization of the detainees as the “worst of the worst” any realistic approach to how to legally deal with those detained in Guantanamo by has been largely replaced by fear inducing rhetoric.

 

Although, mainly because of their own rhetoric, there is not a congressman (or possibly elected official for that matter) who wants detainees to be held in their state or district. The town of Hardin, Montana lobbied to have the detainees sent to the newly built and empty prison, Two Rivers Detention Facility. The Montana congressional delegation baulked at the idea of having detainees transferred to the state they represented. According to an article in Time, Democrat Senator Max Baucus said “we're not going to bring al-Qaeda to Big Sky Country.” Since February Texas lawmakers have been lobbying not to allow detainees to be transferred to Texas or to another other state. Republican Congressman Lamar Smith said that lawmakers will do whatever possible to “prevent the transfer or release of known terrorists into the neighborhoods and communities of Texas.”

 

What this really says is that there is a lack of trust in the United States justice system, and it also suggests that the commissions may be the only way to actually convict many of the detainees of anything. Despite the fact that the Bush Administration has done anything and everything possible to make it difficult to impossible to prosecute terrorist under United States law, it is important that terrorist be brought to justice in a real court room, not a con-mission. Congressman Peter King suggested that the very idea of having a terrorist standing trial within walking distance of the September 11^th terrorist attacks is “offensive” and “dangerous.” When it concerns prosecuting the detainees that were involved in terrorist activities; there is no more fitting place than in the shadow of ground zero.

I was recently having a conversation with a fellow student, and we were talking about the debate in Texas about whether or not students should be allowed to carry concealed guns on campus. This student and I happen to share the same view that concealed guns should not be allowed on campus, and this view happens to be one of the few that we have in common. I am a liberal, and he is a conservative. I vote Democrat, and he votes Republican.

 

This fellow student then recounted a story to me about a conversation he had with one of his professors on the subject of concealed guns on campus. When he told this professor that he was against allowing students to carry concealed guns on college campuses the professor asked him if he was a liberal. The student told the professor that he was a conservative and a Republican, but that he was pro gun control and pro choice. “You’re a conservative Democrat.”

 

This story perfectly illustrates one of the fundamental problems with the current Republican Party; it is a basic misunderstanding of the fact that elections (and the minds of the voters) are won in the middle. The rhetoric that is coming from the Republicans is not unlike what came from the Democrats in the early 1980s and to a lesser extent in the early part of this decade. As the Republican Party has moved further to the right they have lost the moderate and independent voters, however, the ironic thing is if you ask a typical conservative why the believe any given Republican lost an election they will tell you that they where not conservative enough.

 

Today “conservatives” are participating manufactured dissent; they are apparently protesting taxation with representation. These Astroturf protests, which have been organized by Freedomworks and promoted by Fox News, are a symptom of a problem within the conservative movement. The problem with the conservative movement is a lack of new ideas, or the ability to package the fundamental ideas of the conservative movement in a new way.

 

The very idea of reenacting the Tea Party protest is perplexing. The Boston Tea Party was because colonist where upset about the fact that taxes had been levied by the British government without colonist beyond allowed to vote on those taxes. The people that are protesting today voted in November and their elected representatives have been casting their votes since January.

 

There are conservative activist will say that they are protesting the spending or that they believe that we are essentially taxing future generations. Others will use words like “socialism,” “totalitarianism,” and “fascism.” The only central idea or them that the protest have in common is that they are angry, and that they feel that their views are not being represented. The problem is that their views are being represented, and they are angry because their views are no longer in the majority.

 

However, this is not revolution. This is frustration, frustration which is allowing only the most conservative voices to be heard, because they are the only ones that are speaking. The ironic part is that because the Democratic Party has made such gains in Congress the only Republicans that remain are from dark red districts and states, and thus the rhetoric and policy positions is a dark shade of red. Until a leader stands up and says that the Republican Party is open to new ideas and to different view points, and that those who would rather shout from the outside are only divisive the Republican Party is going to continue to find itself on the outside looking in.

 

Although I may be experiencing schadenfreude while the Republican Party implodes, I do not believe that a weak Republican Party is in the long run good for America. I believe that when you have two great political parties the clash of ideas produces better ideas and policies, which is good for America. The political debate in America should not be the demagoguery of talk radio or the incoherent shouting on cable news. It should be a conversation between two people with different ideas about politics and policy over a cup of coffee, or even tea.

“This is not Jasper, Texas.”

 

I have heard that phrased used more than once, in conversations referring to how Bryan and College Station are not as racist as other places. That phrase is actually ridiculous when you think about it because it is comparison based on what is well known as the location of one of the most racist events in recent history. What that phrase is really saying is that there are racist here but we have not yet dragged anyone behind a truck.

 

When you listen to conversations or read the comment sections on the local newspaper you will see code words. These are words that are used in place of the racial epitaphs and the racist language, and give people of privilege the plausibility deniability of saying that they are not racist. Even the names of the cities, Bryan and College Station, have themselves been turned into code words.

 

People who live in College Station often times tend to describe Bryan as if it is inferior, they describe Bryan as if it is not worthy of being so close in proximity to College Station. These same people, who often times live in upper middle class mostly white neighborhoods in College Station, who will talk about how much crime there is in Bryan and how much gang activity happens in Bryan. They speak about how bad the neighborhoods are and how you should not live there or drive through them, neighborhoods that they would not drive through not because of crime but because of the people that they see when they happen to not be able to avoid driving through them. What they really want to say is that Bryan is filled with black people.

 

There is another code word that has entered the vocabulary: Katrina. After Hurricane, Katrina devastated New Orleans thousands of people where left homeless. A significant amount of the people who fled New Orleans migrated to Houston, and a portion of those people migrated to Bryan-College Station. Who were these people? Many of the people left homeless and forced to leave their city were black people, and many of them were poor black people now made even poorer because their lives had been uprooted.

 

There are people who say that crime is more prevalent in Bryan “after Katrina.” What this actually means is crime is more prevalent in Bryan after more black people moved to Bryan. The ironic thing about this statement is statistically the crime rate in Bryan has actually fallen since 2005; there have been fewer rapes, less assaults, less burglaries, and fewer thefts. There have been more murders, but the perception was probably accentuated by the fact that in 2004 there was not a murder in Bryan. So, when there were six murders in 2005 and 2006 and four murders in 2007, and murders tend to get significantly more coverage in the media than do any other crimes, it had the psychological impact of suggesting that there is more crime in Bryan after Katrina than there was before. However, even if there was more crime in Bryan after Katrina that does not change the fact that Katrina would still be a code word for black.

 

The truth is that this community would rather ignore its own racist reality than acknowledge it; this community would rather separate itself from the black community than accept it. The proof is in one imaginary line, the line that separates Texas House of Representatives District 14 from District 17. This line runs right through the middle of Northern Bryan, a line that separates the predominately black neighborhoods of Bryan from the predominately white neighborhoods. Districts are drawn, or should be drawn, because the people of those districts have a shared community, common interests, they have common problems. What then exactly does the community of people that live in Northern Bryan have in common with the five rural counties that encompass District 17? This line was drawn because of the belief that black voters general vote Democrat, and if you can segregate a significant portion of the black community then you can ensure that the white community will maintain the status quo. Also, by segregating the black community in with another large mostly white community you can completely disenfranchise them and not have to acknowledge their problems at all.

 

The racial divide in this community runs long and deep, and what makes it worse is that we have separated ourselves and defined our communities without having to use the words that readily identify it as racism.

“Life must always be protected.”

 

Except if that life happens to be a pregnant girl, a pregnant nine year old girl, a pregnant nine year old girl carrying twins, a pregnant nine year old girl that will probably die if she carries the twins to term, a pregnant nine year old girl that will probably die if she carries the twins to term who was raped by her father.

 

A nine year old girl in Brazil was raped by, by some accounts perhaps since she was six years old, and was impregnated by her father. The girl recently underwent an abortion to terminate the pregnancy, and the Catholic Church has expressed outrage over the incident; not that the girl was raped but that she had an abortion.

 

According to an article in the New York Times the director of the public university hospital where the abortion was performed said that the pregnancy was in its fifteenth week, and the girl faced a serious health risks weighing only 80 pounds. According to the same article the lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil said that the girl should have carried the twins to term and had a Caesarean section.

 

“Life must always be protected” is how according to the Belfast Telegraph a senior Vatican cleric has defended the Catholic Church's decision to excommunicate the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old rape victim who had the life-saving abortion.

 

If it was not outrageous enough that the Catholic Church would excommunicate those that saved the girls life, the Catholic Church has not decided to excommunicate the father. From the same Belfast Telegraph article:

 

Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, the conservative regional archbishop for Pernambuco where the girl was rushed to hospital, has said that the man would not be thrown out of the Church, because although he had allegedly committed "a heinous crime", the Church took the view that "the abortion, the elimination of an innocent life, was more serious".

 

Despite the Catholic Church having the foresight to be against the War in Iraq, and to contribute enormously to the cause of ending poverty, the Catholic Church has completely lost their moral bearings. It is exactly this type of intolerant stance that may actually push people away from Catholicism. This also illustrates how dangerous religion can be when it stands in the way of medicine and science.

 

In Brazil despite that abortion is illegal it is still common, especially among the poor. According to an article in Time an estimated 1 million women in Brazil have an abortion each year. The “poor are forced into clandestine clinics or take medication, while the better-off are treated by qualified physicians at well-appointed surgeries known to anyone with money and overlooked by colluding authorities.”

 

More than 200,000 women are treated in Brazilian hospitals every year for complications related to illegal abortions, one in three pregnancies in Brazil are unwanted, and one in seven women between the ages of 15 and 19 is a mother. However, the Catholic Church continues to ignore the realities. Like the anti-choice movement in the United States the Catholic Church in Brazil is more interested in protecting dogma than life.

Law Enforcement to Get $425,000

By Cassie Smith

 

From the Bryan-College Station Eagle

 

Brazos County law enforcement agencies will receive more than $425,000 from economic stimulus legislation signed by President Barack Obama last month.

 

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards announced Thursday that the money would be distributed through the Justice Assistance Grant program to the Brazos County Sheriff's Department and the College Station and Bryan police departments.

 

The funds can be used to hire officers, upgrade equipment and keep the streets safe, said Chris Chwastyk, Edwards' chief of staff.

 

Officials from all three agencies said they were grateful to Edwards for ensuring the funding for their agencies.

 

Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk said his department would use the $23,752 it will get in a responsible manner.

 

"It's been an unexpected amount of money," Kirk said, adding that he learned about it Thursday.

 

Kirk said the department might use the funds for technology projects, which have been funded through grant money.

 

Kirk, who was in Nevada for a sheriffs' convention Thursday, said he would have to review the guidelines for using the money before deciding how to spend it.

 

"We're excited about it," Kirk said.

 

The Bryan Police Department will receive $293,158 through the program, and Assistant Chief Wayland Rawls said officials would begin studying where to use the money.

 

"This is a lot of money, and we want to make sure we use it to the best use for the citizens of Bryan," Rawls said. "We believe if we properly use this money that we can make a drastic impact in crime."

 

Deputy Chief Peter Scheets said the funds probably would be applied toward equipment, technology and operations.

 

College Station Police Chief Michael Ikner said his department would likely use its $108,511 to purchase technology and equipment.

 

The funds will help the department in its mission of reducing crime and the fear of crime, improving the quality of life and building partnerships, he said.

 

It was unclear Thursday when the money would be disbursed.

 

POLICE FUNDING

 

Area law enforcement agencies will receive funding from the economic stimulus legislation

 

* Brazos County Sheriff's Department: $23,752.

 

* Bryan Police Department: $293,158.

 

* College Station Police Department: 108,511.

 

Published Friday, March 06, 2009

Dunnam pushes resolution critical of state transportation agency on eve of vote for spending federal stimulus road funds.

By Tim Woods (Tribune-Herald staff writer)

 

From the Waco Tribune-Herald

 

A resolution co-sponsored by Rep. Jim Dunnam critical of the way state transportation officials are deciding how to spend $1.2 billion in federal stimulus funds was withdrawn Wednesday amid criticism that its wording was too harsh.

 

The action on the floor of the state House came on the eve of an expected vote by the Texas Transportation Commission on disbursement of the federal transportation funds.

 

Dunnam, D-Waco, and state Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, have led the charge to sway commission members’ opinions and to bring greater transparency to the Texas Department of Transportation’s decision-making.

 

Since the Feb. 26 announcement of the department’s recommendations for the funds, which did not include any McLennan County projects, the two have sunk their teeth into the issue, speaking with commissioners and decision-makers, chairing hearings and helping introduce House resolutions.

 

Local officials requested more than $200 million to widen Interstate 35 north of Waco. That request was not granted on the transportation department’s preliminary list, though $121 million was recommended for an I-35 project to the south in Bell County.

 

Averitt said he has had daily conversations with commissioners and the department about McLennan County’s exclusion.

 

“While I am not yet satisfied with all of their answers, I recognize that managing our state’s transportation infrastructure is a difficult task, and I am confident that at the end of the process our discussions will be fruitful,” Averitt said.

 

Dunnam has headed a select committee looking at the disbursements and has criticized the department’s handling of the funds since last week’s announcement of the proposed projects.

 

On Wednesday, Dunnam co-sponsored a resolution, introduced in the House by Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, that sought more transparency and communication between the department and lawmakers in the department’s decision-making process.

 

The resolution, HR 709, was criticized by some House members for being too strongly critical of the transportation agency.

 

“The last line says that the House, by passing this today, declares that the failure of the (Texas Transportation) Commission and (transportation agency) to conduct the people’s business in a fair, open and accountable manner has lost them the confidence of the House and of the people of Texas,” Phil King, R-Weatherford, said at the hearing.

 

King added, “I’ve been one of the first ones to complain about TxDOT, but is that your intent today, to ask the Texas House to declare as a body that we believe that the commission has lost the confidence of the House and the people of the state of Texas? Is that really where we’re trying to go with this resolution? It’s a strong declaration.”

 

Dunnam, a lawyer, was delayed by an appeal hearing in Waco, so King’s question was fielded by Coleman, who repeatedly explained that the resolution was meant to improve communication between the House and the transportation department.

 

A representative asked Coleman and Dunnam, after he arrived, whether they believed the resolution would affect the commission’s vote today. The representative also asked why the vote on the resolution couldn’t be delayed until today so House members could read and discuss the document.

 

“On Friday, you’re going to get calls from constituents that say, ‘For some members, 70 percent of these funds were spent on toll roads. Why did you allow that to happen?’ ” Dunnam said. “They’re not going to blame TxDOT, they’re going to blame the members of this body. (They’ll ask), ‘Why did you allow them to spend money on projects that didn’t include our district? Or why did you allow them to spend this one-time federal money, 70 percent of it, on toll roads?’ ”

 

Dunnam added that the resolution was the only mechanism by which legislators could try to influence transportation officials before the meeting. This way, legislators could tell their constituents they tried to do something.

 

“If the members want to wait, we can wait, but TxDOT will have already voted,” he said.

 

After further debate, Coleman withdrew the resolution, citing the concern about its wording.

 

Dunnam said Wednesday that, aside from his concern about McLennan County being left in the cold, he worries the transportation department may not be complying with the stimulus act’s requirement that the funds be used in economically distressed areas.

 

“Our concern is that they’re not complying with the act, and that is a transparency and accountability issue because we’re going to have to testify to the federal government that we have complied with the recovery act,” Dunnam said. “They’ve received a great deal of criticism for that because it’s jeopardized the funds.”

 

U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., confirmed Dunnam’s concern Wednesday, sending him a letter that states, “The Recovery Act specifically requires that . . . states give priority to projects that are located in economically distressed areas.”

 

Dunnam said Wednesday evening that McLennan County is on the U.S. House’s list of economically distressed counties and that Bell County, to which the agency’s staff recommendations allot funds, is not.

 

Department spokesman Chris Lippincott has said the department has had discussions over several months with metropolitan planning organizations and conducted research into where the funds would be best allocated. The agency had to act quickly once the money was delivered to comply with the act’s requirements, he said.

 

Dunnam said he hopes the commission will delay today’s scheduled vote on the recommendations or at least strongly consider Oberstar’s words when awarding projects.

 

Published on Thursday, March 05, 2009

Democracy Now!

Over the last several days the Republican Party has been struggling with something: itself. For liberals and progressives there are few things as entertaining as watching the Grand OLD Party eat itself: between David Brooks calling Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama’s State of the Nation speech “the worst response to a Democratic speaker in the history of democracy” and the Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman apologizing to Rush Limbaugh.

 

It can only be assumed that after Election Day the GOP, and the conservative movement by extension, began going through the stages of grief is somewhere between denial and anger. What should be interesting is when the GOP moves to the bargaining stage, if this current stage is any indication it is going to continue to be a political disaster. At the current rate it seems as though acceptance much further in the future than a mid-term election.

 

Charlie Cook of the National Journal wrote that Limbaugh is actually serving a positive purpose for the Republican Party:

 

“…Limbaugh serves a purpose. With morale among Republicans and conservatives so low, somebody needs to say the provocative and even outlandish things that will get their blood moving and give them some incentive to get out of bed in the morning.”

 

In the same article Cook writes that the GOP is “stale and obsolete and is in real need of retooling and repositioning.” The problem then becomes that if the GOP is controlled by the far right of the party the conservative intellectuals with fresh and new conservative ideas will be shouted down as compromising and being too moderate.

 

According to some reports even those that have supported Steele for RNC Chair are now questioning his job performance, and many of the most important RNC staff positions have yet to be filled.

 

That same article describes the ambitious plans that Steele has for the GOP, from reviewing how the entire political party is run to creating a department for forming coalitions. However, Steele has forgotten the most important ambition for a RNC Chairman: lead the Republican Party. From deferring to the state party organizations for questions on funding moderate candidates to this current gaffe with Limbaugh Steele has not projected himself as a leader but as a figure head.

 

It is going to take a third straight Election Day of losses before the GOP actually wakes up to the reality of the new American electorate. The notion of a “center-right” nation is completely outdated. In fact with only one exception, taxes, the entirety of the conservative platform is obsolete. The GOP position on taxes will always have appeal, but you can not base an entire platform around taxes. The GOP needs to formulate a way, and perhaps completely rethink their positions and views, to communicate to the electorate on issues such as health care, and education. However, while the GOP continues to wallow in grief their will not be a new conservative voice that will be able to speak up without being shouted down as a moderate.

 

While it seems as though members of the Obama administration set into motion the events of the last several days with brilliant tactical maneuvers, the White House and the DNC did not plan the GOP quandary; it wasn’t that the Democrats pushed the Republicans as much as showed them where the edge was.

 

There are some things you can plan, but you cannot plan stupidity.

On March 3, the Budget Committee held a hearing on the President's Fiscal Year 2010 Budget.

Waco-area legislators charge state process to disburse federal stimulus transportation funds political and not transparent.

By Tim Woods (Tribune-Herald staff writer)

 

From the Waco Tribune-Herald

 

State Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, worries that Texas Department of Transportation decision-makers might be considering more than just what is best for the state when allocating project funds.

 

Last week, TxDOT staff recommendations apparently left McLennan County without a dime of the $1.2 billion in federal stimulus funds the state received for transportation projects. Before the department’s recommendations, Waco-area officials had hoped to get $200 million in discretionary stimulus money to begin widening and rebuilding Interstate 35 from Lacy-Lakeview to near West.

 

The Texas Transportation Commission is supposed to vote Thursday on the projects TxDOT has proposed.

 

The TxDOT recommendations have caused frustration among Waco-area state legislators, who criticized the process as possibly influenced by politics and not transparent.

 

Averitt said the process may have become political, rather than simply a cost-benefit analysis. He referred to a statement by TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott to the Tribune-Herald last week, when Lippincott said that just because the stimulus money may fund 20 projects, that doesn’t necessarily mean that projects 21 through 25 get bumped up in priority.

 

“In my view, that’s a problem,” Averitt said Friday evening. “That tells me that there are other factors that weigh in the decisions of what projects get funded, rather than some methodical, analytical, financial analysis or cost-benefit analysis.”

 

He added, “I fear that the political factor gets too heavily involved sometimes.”

 

The senator said he doesn’t know for certain that TxDOT decisions are swayed by political pressure, “because I don’t know what their process is, but it raises the question.”

 

Lippincott later said the criteria were developed by local metropolitan planning organizations, then were evaluated by TxDOT staff.

 

“There was no way that this process would not yield fewer projects than there are needs,” Lippincott said.

 

The TxDOT spokesman also said that the process has only been politicized by the discussion since last week’s recommendations.

 

“The risk of this process becoming politicized increases with every day that it is attacked and questioned by people who don’t like the outcome,” Lippincott said.

 

Being in the dark about TxDOT’s decision-making process is something Averitt and state representatives Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, and Charles “Doc” Anderson, R-Waco, point to as a source of frustration.

 

“I think (lack of transparency) is somewhat systemic, and I think there will be some changes there at an organizational level,” Anderson said. He added, however, that he has had good experiences working with local TxDOT engineer Richard Skopik.

 

Dunnam was more biting in his criticism of the state agency.

 

“I don’t think it’s been good in any sense,” Dunnam said. “They’re very difficult to deal with. They’re very difficult to get information out of. When you try to get an explanation for rationale, you get a lot of double talk.”

 

Regarding last week’s TxDOT staff recommendations, Dunnam added, “(Thursday) they were saying that the Waco decisions were the result of the MPO, and I’m told that they told the MPO that the decisions were the result of a matrix that they use to prioritize projects, but they won’t give anybody a copy of the matrix. So, they have a great deal of expertise in double talk.”

 

Dunnam said he thinks TxDOT historically has acted “as though they are autonomous, with no level of responsibility to the taxpayers.”

 

Lippincott scoffed at the notion that TxDOT has been less than transparent.

 

“This has been the most open, transparent process that TxDOT has ever engaged in with the state’s metropolitan planning organizations,” Lippincott said. “These discussions have been going on for four months, and the people of Texas expect quick action with the stimulus funds that are being provided to our state.”

 

Commission to Decide

 

When the five-member transportation commission meets Thursday to decide on TxDOT’s recommendations, the legislators will be watching how carefully the commission examines those recommendations.

 

Lippincott said the committee has several options and is not required to either accept or reject any of the recommendations.

 

Though Dunnam stopped short of saying he sees the commission as simply a rubber stamp for TxDOT, he said “I don’t see them operating independently. I think we need to look at making them more accountable, and I think we should consider looking at a different structure for decision-making.”

 

Averitt said he knows all five members of the commission, three for quite some time, and thinks they will put great thought into the decision, but he again referred to what he sees as a lack of transparency.

 

“I think they deliberate,” Averitt said of the commission. “Here’s the problem, though. I don’t know what their process is. Nobody knows what their process is.”

 

Unless the commission opts to fund proposed projects in McLennan and other counties in Averitt’s district, the senator says he expects his constituents to continue making their voices heard.

 

Lippincott has acknowledged that TxDOT anticipated vocal criticism as soon as they saw the amount of funds weighed against the state’s needs.

 

“I represent 10 counties,” Averitt said. “Three of those counties, other than McLennan, had projects on the cusp of being funded, and none of them got done, (yet) some mega-projects in the Dallas-Fort Worth area got funded. So, yes, I’ve heard from folks in McLennan, Coryell, Johnson and Hood counties, and none of it is positive.”

 

Averitt added, “Everybody wants to know what’s going on, and, at this point, all I can say is we’re working on it.”

 

Published on Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Porter: Obama's speech did not do what it intended to, by showing the plan for ending the war in Iraq.

Smoke Ban in Full Force

By Michelle Casady

 

From the Bryan-College Station Eagle

 

Lighting up in a College Station bar or restaurant will now cost more than just your health.

 

College Station's expanded smoking ban in public places took effect Feb. 1, but law enforcement officers will begin enforcing the ban this month. Fines range from $25 to $2,000.

 

"We engaged in a month's worth of education so we could avoid writing those tickets," said Lt. Rodney Sigler, a spokesman for the College Station Police Department. "But if we need to write a citation, we will."

 

Sigler said he knew of no complaints about people violating the ban since it had been in place.

 

"We're not looking to write tickets; we just want compliance," he said. "And so far, it looks like we have compliance."

 

But city officials said a number of citations could be written in the next few weeks.

 

"Like other Texas cities that have implemented similar smoking ordinances, we anticipate seeing a spike in calls initially," said Hayden Migl, assistant to the city manager. "But the volume and frequency of calls should decrease as the community becomes familiar with the new regulations."

 

The ordinance prohibits anyone from smoking in a bar or restaurant or within 10 feet of entryways to those businesses.

 

To report violators, residents can call the College Station Police Department's non-emergency line at 764-3600.

 

Published on Sunday, March 1, 2009

Your Daily Politics Video Blog: Does Obama's pronouncement of the end of combat missions in 2010 signal victory in Iraq? Who's the better listener, Obama or Bush? And is Rush Limbaugh really the current leader of the conservative movement? All that and more in today's Sunday Show Roundup.

Professor: Every View Important

Ronald Briggs Speaks During Roundtable Discussion

By: Stephen Shepperd

 

From the Texas A&M University Battalion

 

Prairie View A&M Associate Professor Ronald S. Briggs said that everyone's point of view is important during a round table discussion on social paradigms facing minorities.

 

Texas A&M Center for the Study of Health Disparities in the College of Education put on the roundtable discussion in Rudder Tower to conclude Black History Month.

 

"We have had several students who worked with Briggs at [Prairie View A&M]," said Raynolette Ettienne-Gittens, a doctoral research assistant in the Center for the Study of Health Disparities. "They suggested that he would be a good speaker to have because it is Black History Month."

 

Briggs's discussion focused on shifting minority paradigms and opening up one's mind to accepting more than one point of view.

 

"I've been trained to look at people of color, and shed light," Briggs said. "Black people, as well as any person of color, all have different points of view. We need to see that."

 

"These discussions extend beyond people of color to involve even the people of the dominant culture," Ettienne-Gittens said.

 

Briggs gave scenarios and asked members of the round table to discuss how they viewed the characters in the different scenarios. He used music as a discussion aid to help members emotionally connect with each of the characters in an attempt to expand their points of view.

 

"I take a look at many people's differences, incorporate it in my learning, and it allows me to reevaluate even my own point of view," Briggs said. "Just because I think one way doesn't mean everybody thinks the same way."

 

People in attendance were encouraged to express their opinions on topics, including their disagreements. Briggs used the differing opinions of discussion to further explain his point.

 

"Everybody is not in the same place, and we aren't meant to be in the same place," Briggs said. "We need to be scattered out, and no one person is right. Being right is relative."

 

Briggs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a specific emphasis in chemical dependency and group therapy.

 

Published on Friday, February 27, 2009

Economic Stimulus Road Projects

From KBTX

 

We could see dozens of road projects popping up all over the Brazos Valley in the next few months.

 
The state has released a list of more than a dozen roads in our area that qualify for funding from the economic stimulus package.

 

As it stands now, that tentative list contains more than $60 million worth of improvements. These projects are spread out across the Brazos Valley. You'll find a full list by clicking on the document linked above this story.

 

The state has chosen these projects to review, because each could be started within the next few months. This way, the stimulus money would have an immediate impact on the economy.

 

The Texas Department of Transportation meets on Thursday to finalize the list. We'll have an update for you when they do.

 

Published on Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Left of College Station will be live blogging Barack Obama’s first presidential address to a joint session of the United States Congress.

 

Live blog here.

Legislature Urged to Kick in Money to Stave Off Nursing Shortage in Texas

By Cindy V. Culp (Tribune-Herald staff writer)

 

From the Waco Tribune-Herald

 

McLennan Community College President Dennis Michaelis has lost count of the number of times community members have asked him to pull strings to get a loved one into the school’s nursing program.

 

Since the program always has more qualified applicants than slots, Michaelis said he understands the requests. But all he can do is tell people to be patient.

 

“President Obama can’t get your daughter into the nursing program,” he joked.

 

Soon, however, the program may be able to accept more students. A broad-based group of Texas organizations is asking the Legislature to allot an extra $60 million for nursing education, and MCC would be in a prime position to get some of the money.

 

The group, which calls itself the Texas Nursing Workforce Shortage Coalition, has members representing more than 100 organizations. They include health care organizations, education entities and business groups.

 

The coalition’s message is that if Texas doesn’t increase the number of nurses it graduates each year, the state soon will find itself in a crisis. Already, elective surgeries sometimes must be postponed because of the shortage. Similarly, some hospitals have had to temporarily close their emergency rooms due to a lack of nurses, the coalition says.

 

Last year, the demand for full-time registered nurses in Texas exceeded the supply by 22,000, coalition figures show. By 2020, that gap will balloon to short of 70,000 if nursing education programs are not expanded, according to the coalition.

 

Plenty of Texans want to become nurses, coalition officials said. Last year alone, more than 8,000 qualified applicants were turned away from Texas nursing schools due to limited space.

 

The additional $60 million would allow schools to hire enough nursing faculty to nearly double the number of registered nurse graduates by 2013, coalition members said. Right now, there are about 7,000 graduates each year.

 

Having adequate faculty is the main barrier Texas schools face in expanding their nursing programs, said Elizabeth Sjoberg, associate general counsel for the Texas Hospital Association. Schools are required to have one faculty member for every 10 nursing students — a ratio aimed at keeping patients safe while students do hands-on work at health care facilities.

 

That ratio means major money is needed to achieve significant expansion, said Jennifer Banda, senior director of governmental relations for the Texas Hospital Association.

 

That is especially true because schools must offer high salaries to compete with private-sector paychecks for nurses, she said.

 

If the $60 million is approved, both public and private schools would be able to apply for a share.

 

“It’s sort of a jump-start to put the trajectory of nurses on par with the population growth in Texas,” Banda said.

 

If money becomes available, it would go a long way toward MCC’s goal of doubling the size of its nursing program, Michaelis said. That was one of the things the school promised when it asked the community to approve a $74.5 million bond package in 2006.

 

The school’s plan for doing so is slow, however, Michaelis said. The high staff-to-student ratio causes the program to lose $555,000 annually. Because of that, MCC can afford to hire only one additional nursing instructor per year, meaning it can add only 10 students annually.

 

The program currently graduates 120 nurses per year. The goal is to increase that to 240.

 

Increasing the nursing program’s size will directly benefit local residents, Michaelis said. A study the school did in preparation for the bond election found that 67 percent of local nurses graduated from MCC, he said.

 

Scott Connell, senior vice president for strategic development for the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, said because of that, the chamber is a member of the nursing workforce coalition and passed a resolution last year calling for more nurse education funding.

 

“We could grow health care in the greater Waco area if we could just move people through the education process faster,” he said. “(Nursing positions) are good-paying jobs in an industry that’s continuing to grow.”

 

Published on Tuesday, February 24, 2009