THE TEXAS ineuE TROOPER TALES Iloserver Pg. 11 A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES FEBRUARY 10. 1989 • $1.50

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rift, THE TEXAS NAPPY OIPU server oAYs ARE. A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES 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 over- look or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we The Chnshan Science Monier agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. JEFF DAN ZIGER SINCE 1954 Publisher: Ronnie Dugger Editor: Dave Denison Associate Editor: Louis Dubose DIALOGUE Editorial Intern: Gregg Watkins Calendar: Elisa Lyles Washington Correspondent: Richard Ryan Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Derogatory let's have 12 more months of antinuke, pro- Warren Burnett, Jo Clifton, John Henry Faulk, farmworker, big bad capitalist stories. Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, Bill Helmer, Depictions James Harrington, Amy Johnson, Michael King, I mean how else could the average Texan Mary Lenz, Dana Loy, Tom McClellan. Greg The purpose of Debbie Nathan's stay in touch with that strange disease that Moses, Rick Piltz, Gary Pomerantz, John meandering essay, "Frontier Violence," infects anyone who spends more than a week Schwartz, Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh (TO, 1/6/89) isn't clear, but in a short space in Austin. That's right, we keep re-electing Editorial Advisory Board: Frances Barton, she manages to include a number of clever Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerrville; Chandler Craig Washington because he doesn't stay Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, racial stereotypes and assertions, including in Austin. I am not saying that "Colorado D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, her casual derogatory characterizations of Valley Fever" is terminal but it does have Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith. Cambridge, Mexicans ("working wetback in a strange, no let's say interesting, effect on Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham..N.C.; construction," children with "their cross- George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, a person's thought processes. Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.: Maury hatched eyes, staring north, point blank") Have a good year. Let's say keep up the Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris. and suggestions that Mexicans alone are good work (the strange/funny stuff will fill Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James responsible for drugs, border violence, and the blank space). Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey the inhospitable climate she discerns. The Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; Scott Harbers Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg; Robert Sherrill, myth of the "unspoiled frontier" is a straw- Houston Tallahassee, Fla. figure, and it is the U.S. that has acted Layout and Design: Layne Jackson historically with racism, warmongering, and On to the Typesetter: Becky Willard exploitation of Mexico and her resources. Contributing Photographers: Vic Hinterlang, Bill The press (including the Houston Quayle Era Leissner, Alan Pogue. Chronicle's inaccurate reporting on the Big Contributing Artists: Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, 10/14/88) of the poems Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Bend shooting) has consistently The review (TO, Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Krcneck, misunderstood and mischaracterized the of Walter McDonald (a great poet) by James Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail border, as if it is those Mexicans spoiling Hoggard (a good poet), two of Texas's best Woods. our border. Nathan's essay is in this long (I used the criteria of your critic-reader Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson tradition. Lawrence Perrine), gives me an idea for Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom the next eight years: read poetry, not Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons By the way, while "pendejo" does Publishing Assistant: Joe Espinosa Jr. translate as "pubic hair," it really means newspapers; fiction, not news magazines Development Consultant: Frances Barton "stupid." With her views, Nathan must hear (the major difference being that in fiction SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year S27. two years 548. three years S69. Full- the word a lot. the writing is better, if not best). time students SIS per year. Back issues S3 prepaid. Airmail. foreign. group. and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Michael A. Olivas At the end of eight years my career as Microfilms Intl.. 300 N. Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. MI 48106. Any current a literature teacher will be over and Dan subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no Houston one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. Quayle will be president and that is for the

THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-4519/UPS 541300), Comic best. He looks like the most popular of my ©1989, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval fraternity brothers and he thinks like two between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Relief of them (Sigma Chi's best), John Wayne Texas Observer Publishing Co., 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) 477-0746. Second class postage OK, here is how I want to support the and Barry Goldwater. I hope Quayle is paid at Austin, Texas. Observer. I am "extending" my president at the end of my career. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS subscription. Yeah, sometimes TO gets I want to take all of you with me when OBSERVER, P.O. Box 49019, Austin, Texas 78765 some stories' facts so far from reality it I go actually is funny. But their humor (even Jim Byrd when not intended) is at least a relief. So Commerce

2 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 j -.• THE TEXAS EDITORIAL Cbserver FEBRUARY 10, 1989 VOLUME 81, No. 26. Mutually Insured FEATURES Bush and Taxes Destruction By James Ridgeway 5 An Agenda for Progress HERE IS NOTHING so dull as an "schizophrenic set of responsibilities." By Dave Denison 6 T insurance company scandal. Never Not to worry. It is not as if the three mind that the owner of Dallas-based commissioners and the professional staff at Salvadorans in Houston By Louis Dubose National County Mutual allegedly played the agency were torn asunder by cross- 8 fast and lose with rules of the inthistry, pressures that result from serving two Lord of the Highway wrote himself millions of dollars in checks, constituencies. The 79-page Adams Report By Robert Elder, Jr. 11 cooked his books to convert a $20 million reveals that the commissioners, deputy deficit into an admittedly modest $349,453 commissioners, and the professional staff DEPARTMENTS surplus, then disappeared. And that the state frequently disagreed on a number of issues agency established to regulate the industry (often related to personality); but they Political Intelligence 13 detected this $19.7 million "error" then recognized only one constituency: the failed to act, though they did complain about insurance companies. And even when they Books and the Culture "if not false, at least misleading financial obviously should have acted to protect the Chomsky: The statements." And that at least 24 other interests of the companies, bureaucratic Terrorism Within insurance companies in the state are, bungling got in the way. By Bryce Milligan 18 Lovers in a according to Kay Doughty, director of the For years the board was aware that the Monochromatic World Officer of Consumer Counsel for insurance Dallas-based county mutual was in serious By Rosalind Alexander matters, in positions as precarious as financial trouble. As early as 1983 the 19 National County Mutual. And that much of company was tagged with the precedent Afterword the loss to policy holders is going to be adjective that usually suggests either You Don't Need socialized as insurance companies deduct "teens" or "thrifts" will follow. According a Weatherman 22 Guaranty Trust Fund contributions from tax to Adams, National County Mutual was payments, depriving the state of hundreds identified as a "troubled" company as early NCM's certificate of authority. Again, of millions in revenue. as 1983. But the information was only according to the Adams Report: "A staff Insurance scandals are dull because they available in the SBI's Financial Analysis attorney submitted a notice of intention to are made up of actuaries and numbers and Unit and never forwarded to other depart- agencies and accountants and rarely involve ments in the agency. institute disciplinary action to NCM." elected public officials. Jack Smith, David By 1985 the agency's Legal Services NCM responded, advising that its attorney Thornberry, and James Nelson are not division was onto the spoor of serious policy had compiled an impressive stock of informa- household names. Not yet, anyway. And the rate overcharges and actually went so far tion which he was sifting through. The NCM scandal they are involved with is not the as to negotiate an agreement by which NCM attorney stated that he had prepared rough result of any public official's corruption. It would repay $53,543 to policy holders and drafts of most to the responses which he would is, rather, a crisis of competence. A scandal pay a $5,000 penalty to the state. But be forwarding to the agency in the next week caused as much by the failure to act as by according to the Adams Report: "The NCM or two. In addition, he was trying to develop any single public servant's inappropriate or attorney had advised the SBI that NCM was a memorandum which detailed the actual illegal act. It was caused by what former prepared to make the payments and re- operation of National County Mutual and its Department of Public Safety Director Jim quested the executed agreement to be affiliates to satisfy curiosity about the internal Adams described as "systems failures." forwarded. However, the Legal Services operations and accounting. He hoped to have the first of these documents to SBI by the Adams, at the behest of the Governor, Division failed to execute the consent conducted an investigation into the State middle of November (1985) and to finish all agreement which would have completed the of the projects shortly thereafter. Board of Insurance and was, according to negotiations. " During the course of the That was the last document in Legal one source, "given the keys to the file Adams investigation, the legal services Services' file on the case, after which no cabinets at the insurance board." The division was unable to determine what further action was taken. We learned that the Adams report describes a captive regulatory became of the case. Their explanation was case was not reassigned after the responsible agency that not only failed to understand that "it fell through the cracks." They did, personnel moved on. The Holding Company its own mission, but even failed to accom- however, advise Adams that they will "now examiner resigned from the agency about that plish what its executive officers erroneously prepare a memo to be delivered to the time and the attorney was reassigned to duties thought it was supposed to. Receivers Office, with relevant attach- elsewhere and later resigned. NCM's company The agency is responsible for overseeing ments." Perhaps it will be dispatched. But attorney has advised he took no further notice and protecting the solvency of the 2,200 records management in the Legal Services because no one pushed him to respond. licensed insurers operating in Texas and thus division is notoriously poor and at the time This, the work of a watchdog agency protecting the interests of hundreds of Adams conducted his investigation, several monitoring a business identified as a thousands of policy holders — whose hundred files could not be accounted for. potential risk. interest only infrequently coincides with the Also in 1985, the Holding Company interest of the regulated industry. It is, as (There are various explanations for the Section of the agency moved to correct SBI's poor performance. Low salaries, high Tom "Smitty" Smith, of the consumer alleged compliance problems that were turnover, poor organization, and inadequate group Public Citizen explains, a serious enough to require revocation of interdepartmental communication all have THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 3 taken their toll on the agency's efficiency. And an increase in authorized personnel, from 838 in 1986 to 1,516 in 1988, has filled the ranks of an agency with a poor history of training and integrating employees into the workforce. This is not to suggest that the agency doesn't need the new employees — only that it is not capable of training them.)

ET EVEN when the Insurance Corn- Y mission had the facts in hand, they failed to act in the best interest of consum- ers. By October of 1987, the Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, and Board Members were aware of NCM's $16 million insol- vency. Yet a request by then Commissioner Doyce Lee to take appropriate action — which Lee described as supervision, conservatorship, or liquidation, depending on the numbers —was unanimously rejected by the commissioners who decided to allow the company time to work the problem out. Later, the agency's Deputy Commis- sioner, R.B Ashworth, continued to hold out Louis DUBOSE for forbearance because, according to the Public Citizen's Tom Smith Adams report, he didn't believe that the SBI had "the adequate staff nor the expertise' year.) plaints against insurance conipanies: The to untangle such a complex mess." Ash- Montford has filed a package of bills attorney general does not • act without a worth was betting on the NCM attorney and aimed at reforming the agency. And public request frorri the SBI; later insisted that he continued "to hope and interest lobbyists Tom Smith of Public • Prohibit -- for one to two years — even pray" that the company's lawyer could Citizen; John Hildreth of the Consumers emplbyees froM leaVing the SBI to work resolve the problem. This, according to Union; and Annette LoVoi and Rebecca as lobbyists or consultants fdr " insurance Adams, appears to have been undue reliance Lightsey of the Texas Consumers Associa- firms dealing with the agency. on a "corporate attorney whose primary tion have drawn up a list of suggested 'Atstlea, one Member of the three-member. interest has to be that of his client" — and reforms intended to make the agency more state insurance board will be replaced during perhaps undue reliance on the Almighty. All responsive to consumers needs: Their the current legislative session. The Senate of the proceedings were kept secret to avoid reform agenda includes: NorriinationS. ComMittee will conduct hear- a public loss of confidence. • Expanding authority, funding, and inde- ings on the appointment .that the Governor By the time the Board placed the company pendence of the Office of Public Insurance is scheduled to make this week and public in receivership, in October .of 1988, there Counsel. It was this office, directed by Kay interest lobbyistS (". They were circling like was nothing left to salvage. The company Doughty, that brought the NCM affair to sharks during the Montford hearings, " one was more than $50 million in the red and the public attention in October. (The reporter said), who see this as 'an opportu- policy holders had only learned of it when existence of Doughty's office_ is, in part, nity to alter the makeup of the board, have Kay Doughty, the state's advocate for a result of the work of public interest sent the Governor a letter requesting that insurance matters, went public and told of lobbyists during the last session.) he consider certain Criteria in making his NCM's financial condition. • Repeal of the confidentiality requirement nomination: And. Senators have By mid-January, Lubbock State Senator that protects companies from public scru- called for the resignation of the entire board John Montford, who had also had a private tiny. At present, consumers are not in- — a request that will not seem unwarranted . investigator looking at the Insurance Board, formed if their insurer or potential insurer to anyone who has read the carefully began a week of hearings before the Senate is in financial trouble — unless the commis- documented bill of particulars in the Adams State Affairs Committee. Montford's re- sioner determines that release of such Report. And it might not be a bad policy port, though not nearly as thorough as information will not harm the company. decision to conduct a healthy Stalinist purge Adams's, reached similar conclusions. The • Require notification when an insurance of the upper management of the agency, Senator fumed about "dangerous misman- company is unable to pay its claims within where the commissioner's minions can agement by the Board and other high-level 30 days and compel companies to pay never seem to coordinate and implement staff." A bewildered Edwin "Jack" Smith, interest on claims not paid within a specified even the most well-defined policy. One top- Chairman of the three-man insurance com- time period. level manager inquiring about his authority mission, was unable to answer many of the • Establish a separate data base by which and what was expected of him was told: Senators' questions. Smith, who had worked to fix rates and make policy decisions "you. have to pull the wagon, load on as for Clements when the Governor owned concerning insurance companies. Currently, much as you can pull." That's not exactly SEDCO, an oil-drilling company, was government agencies are dependent on how it's taught at the Wharton School of removed as chairman of the agency by the information that is provided by companies Business. Governor. (Smith, who spent 28 years as or trade associations. What really is necessary here is the a Clements employee at SEDCO, is de- • Expand the Guaranty Fund to cover all identification of a Constituency broader than scribed by several lobbyists and lawyers insurance written in Texas. Certain com- the regulated industry. And the introduction who have worked with him as being honest, panies now are allowed to "opt in and out of a new ethic that recognizes as a accessible, and fair — but entirely out of his of the fund's coverage." fundamental principle the protection of element at the Commission. Each of the • Provide the attorney general's office with consumer interests. For that to happen, three commissioners earns $63,345 per authority to independently pursue corn- heads are going to have to roll. — L.D.

4 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989

/ - Ai.:ll ' Irr Bush and Taxes BY JAMES RIDGEWAY

Washington, D. C. alcohol. plants, and other equipment, reducing the 0 MATTER WHAT anyone says According to the Joint Committee on company's depreciation provision by $1.2 about the deficit, there's not a Taxation, the annual cost of corporate billion, or 20 percent, in that year alone. N Democrat or a Republican in this loopholes grew from $10 billion in 1970 What this example shows is that tax rules city who wants to get stuck with the onus to $120 billion by fiscal 1986 (before the written by Congress at the behest of industry of raising taxes in the prosperous afterglow tax reform bill). Reform put the brakes on change their meaning according to the of the Reagan years. So the first six months this process, taking back a quarter of the industry's whim. of the Bush administration are almost sure tax cuts the richest five percent had received • Foreign profits: While the big interna- to be filled with publicity stunts of one sort in earlier tax-giveaway bills, but now tional corporations (which under the 1981 or another: Bold talk of cuts in Medicare business and investment tax breaks are tax giveaway were not paying any taxes at and other domestic programs; elimination expected to cost $212 billion in corporate all) are now beginning to pay something of the Small Business Administration (if it taxes and $205 billion in personal income under the 1986 reform legislation, they still were only possibile!); and taking a mower taxes from fiscal 1989 to fiscal 1993. are not paying their fair share. Citizens for to farm subsidies. The Pentagon is already Despite the passage of tax reform, Tax Justice, in recent testimony before the up in arms over an expected Bush decision Citizens for Tax Justice, a nonprofit National Economic Commission, cited the to freeze defense spending, raising once research organization that has been at the example of IBM: "In its 1986 annual report, more the specter of generals and admirals forefront of the tax reform movement over IBM says that about one-third of its unscrewing rusty parts from one plane to the last decade, said in a recent report that worldwide profits were earned by its U.S. put in another. 16 companies were still able to manipulate operations. But for federal income tax Nothing will happen until late summer the tax system so as to avoid paying any purposes IBM appears to have treated so when, confronted with extending the debt income tax during 1987 on combined profits much of its R&D expenses as U.S.-related ceiling once more and contemplating further of $9.6 billion. Moreover, they received tax that it reported virtually no U.S.-source defense reductions to achieve the cuts rebates totaling $1.1 billion. Among the big earnings. As a consequence, IBM's federal mandated by Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, the winners: General Motors, IBM, Hewlett- income taxes were almost entirely offset by Congress will get down to the business of Packard, Greyhound, and Goodyear. Fifty- foreign tax credits, reflecting the high raising taxes. five other firms paid less than ten percent foreign tax rates the company says it pays Contrary to what the politicians said of their U.S. profits in federal income taxes. in places such as Australia, Japan, the during the campaign, there is no unanimity in 1987, despite the new minimum tax United Kingdom, and West Germany. Of of opinion on how to reduce the deficit, requiring tax payments of no less than ten course, it's possible that, notwithstanding which is projected to top $141 billion in percent of profits. Big defense contractors what it says in its annual report, IBM really 1990. paid little or nothing: McDonnell Douglas, didn't make any money in the United States. But there is a general consensus that it one percent; Lockheed, two percent, and But based on IBM's $25 billion in U.S. sales should be reduced — though there is little Rockwell, seven percent. Ditto for big in 1987 and its $31 billion in U.S. assets, agreement by how much. In theory there financial firms: Merrill Lynch, Chase that hardly seems likely." are various options: raising income tax rates Manhattan, and Transamerica all paid less Or take Prime Computer, the for the middle class and the wealthy; than three percent. Massachusetts-based firm that claims two- instituting a national consumption or sales The trick is to close at least some of the thirds of its worldwide pre-tax earnings are tax of the sort Margaret Thatcher instituted loopholes enjoyed by corporations and from foreign sources even though only in England; or selling the government to wealthy individuals. Citizens for Tax Justice eleven percent of its manufacturing and private investors. All of these are unpalat- recently set out an optimal game plan: research square footage is located outside able. • Mergers: The wave of mergers and the U.S. Because its foreign activities are A more likely course is to slightly widen leveraged buyouts that have engulfed the centered in tax havens like Ireland and the tax base — by, for example, cutting the economy in recent years were egged on by Puerto Rico, the reported foreign profits are amount taxpayers can deduct for interest on tax policies because debt instruments — i.e., taxed at less than six percent. A company mortgages, adding a tax on unrealized bonds — replaced stocks as a financing spokesman told the Boston Globe, "We capital gains at the time of a person's death, technique. The interest on debts can be didn't set out to build a plant in Ireland and or slapping a tax on the money an employer deducted from taxes, which encourages Puerto Rico, but the government offered contributes to pensions. Increasing the junk-bond buyouts. Last year the House incentives and we took advantage and that amount of social security benefits that are passed legislation limiting the interest lowered our tax rate. If that means we paid taxed from 50 to 85 percent — in effect, deduction on debt incurred to finance low taxes, so be it. treating social security like private pension acquisitions and stock buyouts, but the • Tax the Forbes 400: The best way to funds — is another serious option. Congress legislation failed to pass the Senate. raise revenues is to tax the wealthy. Despite won't want to do any of this, but the ad • Accelerated depreciation: The largest the new reforms, the wealthiest people in hoc approach is more practical than setting corporate tax loophole, accelerated depreci- the nation, the so-called Forbes 400, off on a new program. In addition, the ation, needs to be clarified and plugged. continue to pay no or little federal income Congress could conceivably plug some of Under the 1986 reform act, auto companies tax. Every one percent tax on the incomes the leftover corporate tax loopholes and obtained faster tax depreciation write-offs of the wealthiest 20 percent would add $19 increase excise taxes on tobacco and on "special tools" by arguing that this type billion to government revenues. In contrast, of equipment wears out faster than the old every one percent tax increase on the poorest James Ridgeway's column, "The Moving rules had provided for. But in 1987, General fifth of American would yield a mere $1 Target," which appears in the Village Motors announced that it was lengthening billion a year in tax revenues. Voice, is a regular feature of the Observer. the write-off period for its special tools, Other ways to raise taxes include elimi-

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 5 nating the interest exemption on municipal the tax increased commensurately with the relative terms since the 1950s, and is far bonds issued to finance private activities; price for hard liquor, today it would amount less here than it is in most Western repealing tax credits for rehabilitation of old to $44.32 per gallon. The tax was increased countries. In the past, proceeds from the buildings ($1.9 billion); putting a top on the in 1985 to just $12.50 per gallon, but it excise tax on gasoline sales have gone for allowable mortgage interest deduction at is still far below the 1951 level. The tax highways and mass transit. Employing this $12,000 for single returns and $20,000 for on a six-pack of beer is 16 cents, and it tax to increase general revenues sets off an couples ($1.4 billion); placing a partial tax has not been increased since 1951. The intense political argument. Representatives on life insurance and health insurance excise tax on wine then and now amounts of consumer states in the Northeast and on premiums ($30.2 billion; dropping the to three cents per fifth of a gallon. The the West Coast generally look favorably on deduction for entertainment and meals to 50 excise tax on a pack of cigarettes in 1951 an increase in the gasoline excise tax, while percent of cost ($3.6 billion); and taxing was eight cents, or 42 percent of the price an increase is opposed by members from accrued capital gains at a person's death ($6 (it would be 34 cents in today's terms had oil-producing states in the South and billion). the tax kept pace with price increases). In Southwest, as well as those from states with Finally there are the excise taxes. Joseph 1983 it was increased to 16 cents, which big auto plants. such as Michigan. Members Minarik and Rudolph Penner in "Challenge is only 15 percent of the price and well of Congress from oil-producing states would to Leadership" provide a detailed account below the 1951 level. Doubling the tax on rather see an oil import fee as a supposed of the general erosion of these taxes since cigarettes and hard liquor and raising the incentive to domestic oil and gas develop- the early 1950s. In 1951 the excise tax on taxes on wine and beer to the hard liquor ment. Raising the motor fuels tax by 12 a gallon of hard liquor was $10.50, or 43 rate would raise $8.5 billion in 1992. cents a gallon would raise $11 billion a year percent of the typical purchase price. Had The excise tax on gasoline has eroded in by 1992. An Agenda for Progress BY DAVE DENISON

OWER COMES IN TWO forms, similar community groups — from El Paso, do not have health care. the radical organizer Saul Alinsky Houston, Fort Worth, and the Rio Grande In addition, the IAF agenda will be used to say — money and people. Valley — that are organized under the broadened this year. The group's organizers p hope to be a part of the anti-crime debate, "You haven't got any money," he would network of the Industrial Areas Foundation tell folks in communities he wanted to and directed by organizer Ernesto Cortes, lending their weight to proposals coming out organize, "but you do have people, and Jr. (Alinsky founded IAF in 1940.) The of the lieutenant governor's office that seek here's what you can do with them." presence of the IAF "people's lobby" has to address the root causes of crime by For more than 15 years now, a group changed the equations of power at the directing spending to education and child of activists in Texas has been using Capitol. Few observers who remember the abuse prevention. Other issues, such as new Alinsky's methods to organize communities. 1985 session, for example, would doubt that requirements for testing by college students, About ten years ago they decided to apply the difference between success and failure will draw the attention of IAF, according the "people power" method to a place of a bill to increase funding for health care to Cortes. Cortes worries that, without where money had always ruled — the Texas for the state's indigent population was the money in the budget for remedial programs, legislature. In 1977, a citizens' group from presence of hundreds of IAF families from such new testing will only serve to weed San Antonio calling itself Citizens Organ- all over the state in the very halls of the out minority students. One of the session's ized for Public Service brought busloads of Capitol at the moment when the bill's fate major issues, reforming the workers' its members to the state capital. Their was being decided. Suddenly, legislators compensation system, is also under study mission was to urge Governor Dolph were faced with a vocal constituency and by IAF, Cortes said. Briscoe and the legislature to increase public the issue was more than an abstract funding In a recent interview with the Observer, school funding. proposal. It passed the House of Representa- Cortes discussed the major issues of the IAF In 1983 they came again, in greater tives by a one-vote margin. agenda. numbers. Democrat Mark White had just Such victories have not come easily. The School finance. Despite the 1984 educa- been elected governor and their hopes new community lobby has been trying to tion bill that added some measure of soared that public schools would be funded bring the social spending of state govern- "equalization" to the state's method of more generously. And in 1984, when a ment up at just the time when the state funding public schools, a state district court special session of the legislature was government's revenue, which was based on ruled in 1987 that the system was still so overhauling the educational system they taxing the energy industry, dropped dramati- inequitable as to be unconstitutional. Be- were there again. It was in that year that cally. And now, this session, social spending cause a major part of school funding comes the legislature redirected a portion of the advocates face a political situation in which from local property taxes, wealthy areas state aid to the state's poorer districts. a Republican governor threatens to hold the tend to have wealthy schools and poor areas It was a small but significant reform — line on spending and to veto new taxes. have poor schools. But last fall an appeals not because it solved the inequality in the Ernesto Cortes and his legions will be court overturned the ruling; it is now set funding of the state's schools, but because back this year to urge the 71st legislature to be heard by the Texas Supreme Court. it took a step in that direction. And like to fund education and social welfare. They IAF has been meeting with the Mexican other social reforms that were allowed to will be making the case that the school American Legal Defense and Education blossom in the legislature under the Demo- finance system remains inequitable and Fund (MALDEF) to work on a strategy for cratic governor's tenure, it might not have unjust. They will push for a state bond issue the legislature to solve the issue. But, Cortes even made it to the governor's desk without to fund water and sewer development for admitted, "It's going to be very difficult. the kind of organized citizen pressure that colonias along the border. And they will Very, very, difficult. Because of the court began with COPS in 1977. Over the last advocate expansion of the Medicare pro- case being overturned, there's not now the three sessions COPS has been joined by gram to cover more low-income people who pressure on the legislature to do anything."

6 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 Cortes added, "I don't think they can bonds to allow colonias to begin putting frankly, see why there should be that much totally ignore it, because I think that they're water and sewage systems in place. Even- resistance to providing health care coverage going to be setting themselves up for a tually the bond money would be paid back, to children. . . . It makes our state awfully further court case. And I think that the through bills paid by the colonias residents unattractive to people who want to invest make-up of the Texas Supreme Court is still themselves. "This is not a giveaway in this state, that we could be so insensitive such that no one could call how it would program," Cortes said. According to to children's issues." come down. It could come down for the Valley Interfaith's lead organizer Christine Revenue. How will such an ambitious plaintiffs. And so .I think that those people Stephens, the proposed legislation allows social spending agenda have a fighting who are reasonable want a legislative colonias, which are by nature in unincorpo- chance in a no-new-taxes legislature? Cortes solution and recognize it as a very serious rated areas not served by city utilities, to doesn't pretend that such programs can be problem." Cortes said he believes Lt. Gov. get together and fund their own water and funded without tax reform. "Frankly, we Bill Hobby, who presides over the Senate, sewer systems. She said residents will have think the state needs an income tax," he is committed to equity in school funding and to pay up to $30 a month for a utility bill said. "We hope there's some willingness that he sees favorable sentiment in the once the new systems are in place. This, to seriously look at that question." Cortes House, as well. "Whether or not it will be she admits, is less than ideal. But in the speaks of the need for both a corporate and strong enough to override a potential veto age of federal cutbacks and governmental personal income tax. "But obviously the from the governor, I don't know," he said. austerity, it may be the best hope for getting biggest money generator is going to be your Cortes also said he hopes to see the school started on the problem. "Grant moneys are personal income tax. I think probably we funding issue discussed in a wider context. just not available anymore," she said. start in Texas with a corporate income tax." "What I'm hopeful of is, that instead of While Richards and Bullock have partici- The problem is, most legislators, Demo- just approaching it in terms of equalization, pated in developing a bond proposal, the crats and Republicans alike, have ruled out we recognize that we've got to spend more staff of Atny. Gen. Mattox has worked on an income tax in the session immediately money for people, period." He said the a provision in the legislation that would give preceding the coming fight over reappor- basic allotment by which the state spends counties the authority to regulate the tionment (which will be taken up by the an average of $2300 per student is too low. development of colonias. Cortes said that legislature in 1991). Democrats fear that a And he argues that more spending on one of the reasons Congressional attempts voter backlash to an income tax might put education would mean a drop in delinquency to fund water development have not passed enough Republicans in the House to alter and crime, and, thus, less state spending is because some Senators insisted that it is the balance of power in the legislature. in the long run for prisons. This is what the responsibility of the states to stop the Cortes admits this factor, though not he admires in Lt. Gov. Hobby's anti-crime proliferation of the colonias. Such a provi- happily. "Essentially, you have the state plan. As articulated by Hobby's aide sion is a key part of the colonias bill that being held hostage to redistricting, which Camille Miller, who spoke to the IAF group will be carried in the state legislature by is understandable politically, but tragic in Valley Interfaith in January, "Our plans to Reps. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, and Alex terms of lives being wasted," he said. expand the state prison systems are based Moreno, D-Edinburg, and by Senators Tati An approach that may be more realistic on prison population projections that assume Santiesteban, D-El Paso, and Hector Uribe, in the short run, he said, is to expand the the incarceration of children who are now D-Uvalde, Cortes said. base of the sales tax so that it covers those seven, eight, or nine years old. We are Cortes still hopes to see money appropri- sectors of the service industry that are not telling these children that we do not have ated by Congress, as well, though he adds now covered. "The difficulty right now is the resources to help them now but we are wryly, "There doesn't seem to be as much that there is so much economic activity reserving a $30,000-per-year prison bed for interest [in Congress] now as there was which is not included in the sales tax. And them when they turn 18 or 19." before the election." He said Senator Lloyd it needs to be expanded. If you're going But how much would it cost to fund Bentsen has made a committment through to continue the sales tax it needs to be additional educational programs and to a telegram to Valley Interfaith to push for expanded to services. I think there needs pump more state money into the state's colonias funding. to be some serious thought about tax equity poorest school districts? Cortes sets the price Health care. The thrust of IAF's efforts and tax fairness," he said. tag at $800 million for a two-year period. on health care this session will be to expand All in all, it is an ambitious agenda for Colonias. As news stories and legislative the number of people covered by Medicaid. IAF and the other social spending advocates studies over the last two years have drawn Although this is a federal program, it is a at the 71st legislature. But later this month more attention to the dire living conditions state concern because the state pays 40 cents IAF community organizers from around the in the hundreds of subdivisions along the for every 60 cents in federal money. Cortes state will begin making their treks to border, nearly everyone admits that it is one said the state's rules on who is now eligible Austin. They plan to meet with experts on of the most pressing of the state's social for Medicaid are "abominable." Though he the state's tax structure and look into problems. Anywhere from 140,000 to looks with favor on a proposal currently possibilities of forming an alliance with the 200,000 people are estimated to be living being discussed in the Lt. Gov.'s office to business community to push for tax reform. in the border colonias without running water allow children up to three years old to be "It's really in nobody's interest to have an or sewage systems. It has not been difficult covered, "we'd like to see it go a little undereducated and chronically ill population for activists to get the state's leading further, to eight-year-olds." The income and workforce," Cortes said. "Good Democratic officeholders enlisted in an level at which a person becomes eligible politics and good economics are beginning effort to do something about the water for Medicaid — now at 23 percent of the to mesh." problem. State Treasurer Ann Richards, federal poverty line — is also too low, he And when busloads of people start coming Attorney General Jim Mattox, Comptroller said. He would like to see Medicaid in from El Paso, and from Houston and San , Bob Bullock, and Lt. Gov. Hobby, have coverage opened up — especially to allow Antonio, and from the Rio Grande Valley, all joined Valley Interfaith and El Paso pregnant women who earn as much as 185 and when they rally at the state capital, they Interreligious Sponsoring Organization percent of the poverty level to be covered. will not be there to tell the legislators to (EPISO) in working on a solution. The hard This, of course, would carry another hefty take the easy way out. Legislators who care part will be getting it through the legislature. price tag — from $100 million to $200 to pay attention will be able to see from The plan that state officials and commu- million in extra state funding, Cortes said. the faces of many of these people that they nity leaders have worked on, with the staff But even given the "tight-fisted, parsimoni- have had their share of tough times, too. of the Texas Water Development Board, is ous . .. mean-spirited attitude toward these Sooner or later, a rash of political courage to issue $500 million in general revenue kind of things," Cortes said, "I can't, may break out. ❑ THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 7 Salvadorans in Houston

BY LOUIS DUBOSE

Mirando gente que se ha dado a la fuga, Houston neighborhood. pueblos huyendo en eternas retiradas What the two graduate students achieved —Ruben Blades — in a door-to-door survey — is the documentation of what will be recognized Houston as the most rapid demographic change to RIVING WEST, away from the have ever occurred in Houston. That is, that city, fragments of Philip Johnson's in a matter of four to five years, a corner D post-modern skyline appear then of Southwest Houston has become a small disappear in the rearview mirror. To the Central American city. Thirteen thousand right is Greenway Plaza, austere five hundred Hispanics, according to the architectural modernism at its narcissistic Urrutria-Rojas/Prado study live within the worst — distorted images of one glass tower one square mile area that they surveyed. reflected of the sides of another — and And 36 percent of that number is, according another. Then, on the left, the odd geometry to the study, Salvadoran. Beyond the square of the Houston Post building, designed, mile where the Prado and Urrutria-Rojas according to the city's finest architect, knocked on so many doors (a third of the HoWard Barnstone (who took his life two residences were vacant) the neighborhood years ago), to be appreciated at a passing continues, spilling into the small tract house glance at 50 miles an hour. Then, on the subdivisions north of the Southwest Freeway right and in the distance, before the freeway and extending south into the small frontage completely gives way to car landlocked municipality of Bellaire. dealerships and strip development, the The University of Texas public health Transco Tower — the huge vertical art deco survey also confirmed what the management shaft that dominates the city's southwest LOUIS DUBOSE of the locally owned Fiesta chain already skyline. Bellaire Gardens Apartments realized. That is, that the new Central At 50 miles an hour, or at the painfully American population is not young, single slow pace by which most commuters make countries — are among the most requested men looking for casual work. Fifty-five their ways out toward the predominantly services. In the parking lot, on space rented percent of the population, according to white, tract-house suburbs that encircle the from the market chain, are a dozen Grimes, is male, 45 percent is female. city, few recognize, even after the freeway estanquillos — booths where venders sell "Twenty percent of this group," Grimes bends from west to southwest, that they have cheap clothing, leather goods, furniture, jam said, "are American citizens." Children just passed through one of the largest Central boxes, stereo tapes and cheap art. On this born to parents living in exile. American communities in the South. A particular afternoon, a recumbent Marilyn There is, in all of this, an odd community that they might discover, if only Monroe hangs framed above The Last demographic irony. These two story brick they would turn south at the Bellaire exit, Supper. In the parking lot, a Reparacion veneer apartments, built 25 years ago then, continue for some ten blocks to the de Calzado — shoe repair — and across around small courtyards and swimming sprawling, corporate-owned, Central the street the Clinica del Sol medical center. pools, were never intended for the American mercado, where Bellaire A half-block to the north is La Caseta — Salvadoran, Mexican, Guatemalan, and intersects with HillCroft. a long distance phone center with private Honduran children who at the end of each It is the Fiesta market at the corner of booths and bilingual operators. Here is day spill out of the yellow Houston Hillcroft and Bellaire avenues that anchors everything, even more than a consumer Independent School District buses, then Houston's new Hispanic barrio — a place would ever find, in the center of San scramble for the access gates at places like that by the geography of the city lies Salvador. Colonial Gardens, Lion's Gate, Clarewood antipodal to the traditional Southeast "If you don't go to Fiesta, you won't Gardens, and Renwick and Trafalgar Houston Chicano and Mexican barrio. Here, see them," Richard Grimes said of the Squares. Nor were they intended for the few in the heart of what ten years ago was white Salvadorans living in Houston. "They're an black families who are also changing the middle-class Houston, is a small Hispanic invisible population; most of Houston character of what was previously an almost town, all clustered around and in the huge doesn't know that they're here." Grimes is exclusively white neighborhood. Fiesta market that includes a bank, a a professor of public health at the University "In 1980, this neighborhood was hot," dentist's office, an optician, a travel agency, of Texas School of Public Health at one apartment manager said. "It was and a Western Union office, where money Houston. Last year, he directed two Houston's singles' scene where most of the orders and giros — money wired to foreign graduate students, Ximena Urrutria-Rojas young people who used to work for the oil and Melvin Prado, who conducted a companies lived. Then, in 1982, the bottom A similar version of this article previously demographic study to determine public fell out and the vacancy rate went out of appeared in Southern Exposure. health needs in the changing Southwest sight.' Most of the apartments, according 8 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 to Jim Sandford, who now directs an apartment owners' association, then became properties of the banks and lending institutions who had financed them. "The banks demanded that they fill the apartments to bring in some money," Sandford said. "So rents went down and there were no more credit checks." At the same time, other demographic pressures were at work in Central America, particularly El Salvador. "In 1981, the war s4< got very hard," said one young man from the Department of Morazdn, who had just completed a commercial truck-driving school. "I was in Los Angeles and I tried to return to help my family. When I couldn't even get into the country, I came here. My parents got out of El Salvador, too." "My family measures our time here by the years of the Reagan Administration," one woman, who said she was from the Department of Usulutdn, said. "In 1981, my mother and father came to Brownsville. Then they moved to Houston. In 1983 I came to Los Angeles, the only place the coyote would take me. Then, by plane, I came to Houston. Later my sister and SHARON L. STEWART brothers came." She only wishes that her Shopping cart roundup, Southwest Houston citizenship papers were complete, she said, so that she could have voted for Michael in living conditions, he argues, will have the Department of Santa Ana, who now Dukakis: Now, only her parents talk of to come from within the community, from works for a sanctuary and relief organization returning someday to El Salvador, where below --- a fundamental precept of in Houston, agrees. "When I lived in New they once owned a small business,. Liberation Theology. "Knowledge is York," he said, in perfect English, "there Most agree with the young woman. At power," Zwick said, "and that is where we was some political organizing and working a gathering at Holy Ghost Church, I ask will begin." The 'empowerment project, to for political rights. But here, there is not the same question of a dozen women, be'located in a house in Southwest Houston, so much." An articulate, almost full-time gathered to receive clothing provided will address tenant-landlord relations, activist, whose immediate family is safe in through the parish and Casa Juan Diego, workers' rights, fundamental legal Europe, Cesar said that much of his time a Central American Sanctuary located near protections, problems • in dealing with is spent providing basic needs like beds and the Heights, miles from SouthWest Houston. schools, the post office, and the police food, and assistance dealing with Most are mothers, under twenty. department. It is one of several grass roots immigration problems. On the day we "Were the war to end and the economy • movements developing in the Salvadoran spoke, the INS had raided an informal labor improve, would you return to yourthomes?" community in Houston. pool on the street corner near Casa Bill I ask. Some almost instinctively move away, Others also take as their model the Woods where Cesar works. not wanting to speak to a writer. Among communidades de base that have reinvented "The city is only beginning to realize that those who remain, one woman speaks for 'the Catholic Church in Central America. they are out there," Lois O'Connor said all of the others. "Si, pero no mas pa' it Richard Grimes tells of a "scripture of the Central Americans. O'Connor, who y regresar.". Yes, but only to go and to sharing" group that meets at the Holy Ghost works for Houston City Councilman John return. Parish to discuss scripture and how it applies Goodner, said that when a recent request in a practical way to day-to-day life. At for a part-time, city-funded clinic in the UT MOST will never go. Unless, nearby St. Anne's, a Catholic parish once district was approved she was surprised. thatis, they are apprehended by the so chic and wealthy that its parishioners "I'm used to being told no," O'Connor said. INS and returned. For many, the almost considered themselves Goodner's office, according to O'Connor, marginal lives they live here are better than Episcopalians, a 30-year-old Salvadoran has also persuaded the city administration anything they have ever known in their woman describes a group she helped to locate a Women, Infants, and Children homeland. And there are children. But organize: (WIC) nutrition program office in the Houston's depressed economy, and the new "We study the Word of God . . . to district. And a storefront police station is immigration law's employer sanctions reestablish our identity, to recapture our also in the works. There is, O'Connor said, almost assure that many will continue to live dignity. Living like this, without work, a lot of violent crime in the area and the at the margin. without documents . . . we don't even know most notable increase in crime has come "It's time to start thinking in terms of who we are. In Salvador, I worked in a in the past two years. empowerment," Mark Zwick said in an religious community. Here it is important, Crime, according to Richard Grimes, interview at the Holy Ghost Church. Zwick, too. If we use the scripture and our who lives in Southwest Houston, arrived who organized Casa Juan Diego, a Catholic discussion maybe we can come out of the with the employer sanction provisions of the Worker sanctuary which often strains to shadows." Simpson-Rodino immigration reform law. accommodate more than 100 Central "It's not easy," Tom Picton, a "There was no prostitution until other American men, is working with members Redemptorist priest on the Holy Ghost staff, legitimate sources of employment were cut of the Central American Community to said. "There is no political power because off," Grimes said. "That's when the moral begin a Central American empowerment there is no political base, no block of degradation of the neighborhood really project in Southwest Houston. Improvement voters." Cesar, a young Salvadoran from began. Now, you can find prostitutes in the

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 9 community — and drug dealing." Zwick says that at Casa Juan Diego there are now more signs of families in stress, "domestic crises, alcoholism, battered women." Casa Juan Diego, established to • house homeless men, now provides a program for battered women. And Carecen, a legal services organization, has recently hired a counselor to deal with traumatized families, particularly women. Domestic crises are, in part, a result of an odd distribution of labor among Central American families in Texas. While men spend mornings at informal, corner labor pools, looking for casual work, many

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* 1607 San Jacinto * 477.4171 * LOUIS DUBOSE Shopping cart family, Nillcroft Ave.

women, who can always find domestic this man and his family operated a small ARCHIVAL PRINTING work, leave their families each night to clean business. Here, everyone either works or the huge office towers where the city earns studies. In eight years, the family has moved PHOTOGRAPHIC CONSERVATION its living. "The work [in office buildings] from the Casa Juan Diego into an apartment, is very hard and degrading," said a young then into the three-bedroom tract home they woman from UsulatAn, who was beginning now occupy in Southwest Houston. When TERRY TULLOS WAYLAND medical school just when the university in he is not working — either as a carpenter RT. 2, BOX 70-A, WIMBERLEY, TEXAS 78676 San Salvador was closed down. "What they or mechanic — this former shopkeeper, with TEL: 512.847.9295 - AUSTIN: 331.1767 demand of the women and they way they his wife, does volunteer work in the are treated is not fair. And some women Salvadoran "network." One son is married take drugS to stay awake." She now cleans and in another state. A daughter has houses every day, she said. "But no organized and teaches a Central American I offices." group at a Catholic church. And another ANDERSON & COMPANY There are, according to a study conducted will resume her medical studies here some COFFEl4.1 by University of Houston sociologist Nestor day. But for now, she cleans houses every TEA SPICES day. "But no offices." TWO JEFFERSON SQUARE Rodriguez, as many as 100,000 Salvadorans AUSTIN, TEXAS 7W731 living in Houston. The community in Southwest Houston is nobody's 512 453-1533 Southwest Houston, a small part of a larger community. And so the Salvadorans living population, has altered the demographic here live in a place with no name. There Send me your list. landscape of the city. Yet the official is no Little Salvador, no Barrio de Santa Name business of government is conducted as if Ana, no Barrio Chalatenango. Like much this Hispanic community did not exist. Local of Los Angeles it is only an urban place, Street political campaigns in the district are a place designed to accommodate the two- car family. So now at night, when most city Zip conducted entirely ' in English. Though Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire has worked families have returned to their apartments, to establish contacts in the large and the parking spaces are vacant — of cars that politically active Asian community, no is. But they are filled with shopping carts. elected leader has connected with the large This is, after all, the first pedestrian culture Central American community. O'Connor that Southwest Houston has known. Women East Dallas suggested that change will come with the here navigate shopping carts loaded with next generation. children, groceries, and clothing along Printing A local immigration attorney disagrees. residential streets and thoroughfares where "A large number of Central Americans are no one ever anticipated the need for Company residents now," Frances Tobin of the sidewalks. And in this city where Howard Central American Refugee Center said. Barnstone reinvented residential architecture Full Service "And in five years many of them will be to accommodate the automobile, distances qualified to vote. That's when the biggest between homes and schools and stores often Union Printing changes will come." are immense. "Right now we have no community," a So while in the inner city the shopping (214) 826-2800 60-year-old head of a household said, of cart has become the symbol of the nation's 211 S. Peak • Dallas, Tx 75226 Salvadorans in Houston. "What we have homeless, here it has come to represent is a network (una red) to get help and help something else: the newly arrived each other.'' In the department of Usulatan, immigrant. Lord of the Highway The Case of the Flush-Faced Black Man and Other True Trooper Tales BY ROBERT ELDER, JR.

Austin check of court documents shows Holmes the judge rules against the trooper in a ROOPER Jimmy Lee Holmes was the cited it when his suspect was a dark-skinned hearing expected to take place this month, top gun for the Department of Public black man. The Case of the Flushed Face defense attorneys and Travis County prose- T Safety in central Texas. He's ar- Black Man was only the most recent in a cutors say the effect will almost certainly rested more drunk drivers in recent years series of dubious cases. Holmes could do be to keep Holmes out of court. than anyone else in the department; he had it all. The trooper, who knows little Spanish, For more than a year, defense attorneys a strong record of convictions; and he had even claimed to have carried on a conversa- have been comparing notes on Holmes and the gung-ho support of his bosses and of tion with a Hispanic suspect who knows only compiling examples of his methods. Inter- the Travis County prosecutors who bring a few words of English. Holmes's critics views and court records include the follow- his cases to court. now hope the questions raised about the ing allegations: Judging from Holmes's arrest reports, he trooper's cases will result in orders by • Holmes said in one report that a suspect wasn't just taking tipsy drivers off the road. fumbled through his wallet several times, He was arresting stinking drunks, drivers mistaking a credit card for a driver's license. so out of it they would urinate in their pants The suspect had neither a wallet nor a or drive around with their zippers open. There is license. Many had other tell-tale signs — a "mush • In his reports, Holmes frequently says mouth," or a face flushed by the effects "tremendous" the suspect's left door was "open to traffic." of alcohol. In their apparent stupor, they He included that in a report of a man stopped left the driver-side door open to traffic once pressure at DPS in a high school parking lot at 2 a.m., Holmes stopped them. Many fumbled records show . through their wallets while seeking their to arrest more • An Austin justice of the peace says drivers' licenses. Some would mistake a Holmes photocopied dozens of probable credit card for a license. drunk drivers cause affidavits first, then added his name But now it's Holmes who is off the road. and the suspects' names later. He's got a desk job pending a DPS • In court records, three of Holmes's investigation into his record. Higher-ups at fellow troopers say his sloppiness leads to DPS, accustomed to backing Holmes, now Austin judges barring him from local courts. serious errors. One trooper indicated that play wait-and-see. Travis County prosecu- Though Holmes's critics in the Travis Holmes may have switched Intoxilyzer tests. tors, who used to try his cases with vigor, County defense bar have been building their Another trooper said Holmes hardly ever now don't touch them. case for more than a year, more recently observed suspects for the required 15 How Jimmy Lee Holmes fell from Lord revealed evidence — including charges that minutes before administering a breath test, of the Highway to desk jockey is an example Holmes may have fabricated arrest reports to make sure the suspect did not ingest or of how the system proves that "in its own by mass-producing them in advance — regurgitate anything that would alter the sweet time, it works," as Austin defense promises to bring the issue to a head. The results. lawyer Stuart Kinard, a Holmes critic, put evidence, supported by affidavits from some • In each case, Holmes says he has it. of Holmes's fellow troopers, threatens to "personal knowledge" of the conditions Officialdom didn't take Holmes off the discredit his testimony and force the leading up to an arrest. But in one arrest road. Austin defense lawyers, who long ago dismissal of at least 150 pending cases and being questioned, records show another had dubbed Holmes "Trooper Wet Spot," the early release of at least 50 people now trooper stopped the suspect before turning starting comparing incidents involving on probation. him over to Holmes. Holmes, one by one, until they had built After defense lawyers compiled the Holmes has arrested far more people than a startling body of evidence against the evidence against Holmes, the DPS, Travis any other trooper in Central Texas. His trooper's credibility. Recently revealed County attorney's office, and Travis County conviction rate generally is the same as other evidence, culled from the files of Holmes district attorney's office are — finally — troopers'. But the evidence — some recently cases, shows that the trooper's fabulous looking into the allegations against Holmes. compiled by the county attorney, but most record was based on questionable arrest The DPS has put Holmes on desk duty the result of digging by Stuart Kinard and reports and testimony. Holmes has declined pending the completion of the internal his wife and law partner, Jeanette Kinard repeatedly to answer questions from the investigation, says Sgt. Bobby Short, — cast doubt on the legitimacy of his high- press about his methods. Holmes's supervisor. Short estimated the volume arrests. Holmes, like many DPS troopers, fre- investigation will be concluded by early Judge Steve Russell, one of the two quently cites a "flushed face" as evidence February. criminal court-at-law judges who have that a person has been drinking. But a recent Two Travis County court-at-law judges complained about Holmes, predicts that have already taken action that all but bans other judges "are going to take some action, Holmes from testifying in their courts. One too." In 1987, Judge Russell heightened Robert Elder, Jr. , is a reporter for the Texas of those judges, Wilfred Aguilar, has been concerns about Holmes when he ordered a Lawyer, where a similar version of this story asked by Austin lawyer Kinard to determine compilation of Holmes's arrest reports. The first appeared. whether Holmes is a credible witness. If report showed a striking consistency —

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 11 particularly in the high percentage of on themselves, and not if they spilled a my own business." Clendennen said. "I suspects Holmes claimed either urinated on drink. Under questioning by Kinard, didn't pursue it any further." themselves or left their zippers open. Holmes said it wasn't that DWI suspects Clendennen said Holmes ignored "at least Once the number of incidents Austin in Travis County had stopped urinating on 50 times" the policy that says troopers must defense lawyers complained about started themselves, but that he "just quit putting observe suspects for at least 15 minutes piling up, and a hearing was set by Judge it in my reports." before administering the breath test. Wilfred Aguilar to rule on a motion to "I kept giving y'all gas to pour on the Clendennen also charged that Holmes declare that Holmes was not a credible fire, so to speak," Holmes testified. Holmes listed wet spots on suspects when there witness, County Attorney Ken Oden's office said he resumed reporting wet spots with weren't any and that he filed a DWI charge compiled more evidence of questionable Kinard's client because the suspect, as against a man who was passed out in a car actions by the trooper. Finally, prosecutors Kinard put it, "made a scene" and sitting on the shoulder of a road. at Travis County District Attorney Ronald threatened to file a complaint against the County Attorney Oden said several Earle's office stepped gingerly into the fray, trooper. troopers told his office that Clendennen may saying they were looking into the contro- "So you would put it in your report that be biased against Holmes because of a versy. someone had a wet spot if they did, and "personal conflict" stemming from the The investigation into Holmes also has if in addition they said they were going to divorce of Clendennen and his wife, both shed some light on the DPS, complete with complain against you?" Kinard asked of whom knew Holmes. Allegations of bias stinging testimony against Holmes by his Holmes. don't bother Judge Russell, who noted that fellow troopers and an admission by one "Yes," Holmes replied. two other troopers, Riordan and Michael trooper that there is internal pressure at DPS In a transcript from another case in 1987, Fincher, back up parts of Clendennen's to rack up DWI cases. A trooper's affidavit Holmes contradicts himself on the reporting statements. says that Holmes "had tremendous pressure of wet spots, at first agreeing that such a Riordan's affidavit says he "never ob- put on him for the number of DWI's arrested condition is "pretty unique," then saying, served" Holmes obeying the 15-minute — as every othertrooper in our office did." "It is common on most drivers." waiting period before running the In July, Kinard asked the trooper, who Intoxilyzer. "He often times would run . OLMES HAS HAD previous disci- was testifying in a DWI case, how he Intoxilyzer within a few minutes, less than pline problems. A DPS personnel determined whether a person's "face is 15, of arriving at the jail," the affidavit says. H report shows that Holmes was flushed. - Trooper Fincher, who said relations between Clendennen and Holmes became once suspended for five days without pay Kinard: "For example, the white person is strained during Clendennen's divorce, also for allegedly possessing and selling steroids. easy to observe, but a black person you The personnel report also shows that wouldn't know that their face is flushed; is said Holmes did not observe subjects for 15 minutes before giving them the Holmes was suspended for three days that correct?" without pay last year for going on a "dark Holmes: "Yes." Intoxilyzer test. Two other troopers, who run" — chasing a vehicle without his Kinard: "Have you ever indicated that a had not teamed extensively with Holmes, warning lights or siren on — without first black person whom you have arrested has a signed short affidavits saying they consid- notifying his superiors. It ended with flushed face? You wouldn't do that?" ered the trooper professional and credible. Holmes running a red light and colliding Holmes: "I don't think so. - Another Travis County official, Justice of broadside with another vehicle. A civil suit Kinard: "If you did it wouldn't make the Peace David Crain, said about one year is pending. sense?" ago he noticed Holmes was submitting But things didn't start to unravel for Holmes: "No." probable cause affidavits that listed identical Holmes until Judge Steve Russell last year conditions of suspects. heightened the Austin defense bar's con- Holmes fell into the trap. In September "They should vary, - Crain said. cerns about Holmes by ordering a compila- 1987, he had arrested a dark-skinned black "They're not always the same symptoms." tion of Holmes's arrest reports. They man for DWI. The arrest report noted "face Crain said Holmes had photocopied the showed a striking consistency. Of 129 males flushed." affidavits, then added his name and the Holmes arrested in a ten-month period, Other transcripts, files, and arrest reports suspect's name when he made an arrest. At nearly three-quarters of the cases were based reveal dozens of incidents that cast doubt one point, the JP said. Holmes was even on the same type of evidence — 72.8 percent on Holmes's testimony and procedures. The photocopying his name as well. Crain said of the suspects either had the zippers of their most damaging charges come from three of he notified an assistant to the county attorney pants open, a "wet spot" on their pants, Holmes's fellow troopers' affidavits that are and eventually the photocopying stopped. or both. part of a case record. Trooper Clendennen, "My impression was that Holmes stood That struck experienced defense attorneys who teamed with Holmes for several months out from the rest in sloppiness and the as unbelievable; Judge Russell called it an last year, said Holmes may confuse facts paperwork aspect of the job, - Crain said, "amazing coincidence" in ordering the by "mass producing case reports." adding that the legend of Trooper Holmes compilation; and even county prosecutors Once. Clendennen said, he and Holmes was well known in official circles long acknowledged that it was, ahem, highly arrested a white male for DWI and, on the before he became the talk of the Travis unusual. way to jail, arrested a Hispanic male on County bar: "He achieved a certain level Austin lawyer Betty Blackwell said the same charge. In his affidavit, of notoriety around here before he became Holmes's percentages of wet spots and open Clendennen said Holmes didn't wait the known to the rest of the world," Crain said. zippers was "outrageously high." She said required 15 minutes before running either El she's seen two examples in her nine years test. While the Intoxilyzer was running on of criminal defense practice, and one was the Hispanic man, Clendennen said, he on a Holmes report. noticed it was "reading .15 then .16," far Defense attorneys say Holmes's reports above the .10 legally intoxicated standard. Editor's note: stopped noting wet spots in early 1988, after "When Jimmy brought me the test results At Observer press time, the Department Judge Russell made the statistics part of a they showed the white male at .21 and the of Public Safety suspended Trooper Jimmy case record. In a July 1988 pretrial hearing Hispanic at .09, - Clendennen said in the Lee Holmes (with pay) for an undetermined in the case Judge Aguilar dismissed January affidavit. "I couldn't understand this and length of time. At least 150 Travis County 11, Holmes said he only notes a "wet spot asked Jimmy if he had made a mistake and DWI cases will now be dismissed. in the crotch area" if a person has urinated confused the results and he told me to mind

12 • FEBRUARY 10. 1989 POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE

Vi JIM HIGHTOWER, Commis- write a book. He has an interested publisher, Richards raised more money in the last six sioner of Agriculture, says he expects that he says, and is considering collaborating months than Mattox did — she pulled in in late February or early March an an- with Susan DeMarco on a book either along $1.9 million to his $1.2 million. But since nouncement will be made regarding the the "populist manifesto" lines, or one Mattox got the earlier start, he has more organizational structure and goals of the attempting to make economic theory rele- money in the bank than Richards. He claims "populist alliance" he is talking about vant and accessible to a progressive audi- to have more than $3 million socked away, organizing. The two groups Hightower ence. "The truth is, liberals are scared of while Richards says she has about a million. mentions as being instrumental to the new economics," he says. As Mattox pointed out when reporters began alliance are the state AFL-CIO and Texas asking if he would run against Gramm, that trial lawyers. He has Tim Fuller coordinat- VI ANN RICHARDS, the popular $3 million that he has raised for a governor's ing the organizational efforts, along with state treasurer, may eventually be making race is not convertible to a U.S. Senate race, long-time consultant Doug Zabel, former an appearance on the bookshelves, as well; because of different laws governing federal legislator Russ Tidwell, and Austin lawyer her autobiography is in the works. It will and state races. Richards's spokesman Bill and activist Jim Marston. Fuller is a former be in the "as told to" style. Before Cryer says the State Treasurer is not likely director of the Missouri Democratic party Christmas she spent several days with Peter to run against Gramm. "I haven't noticed who also has been active in Washington Knobler, a freelance writer in New York, any deep consideration of that Senate race," D.C. with issues of homelessness and who took about 36 hours of tape recording he says. housing. Hightower says they are seeking of Ann Richards telling her life story. advice from other organizers around the Knobler and Richards are working with the V" TRIAL BALLOONS are up for country, including Marc Caplan of the Simon & Schuster publishing house, which several other potential Senate candidates, Connecticut-based Legislative Electoral is, incidentally the same company that though. U.S. Rep. John Bryant Of Dallas Action Project and Ohio activists with recently signed Ronald Reagan to a $6 is thought to be a strong contender. For at Citizen Action. In all, there are about 40 million contract to produce his memoirs and least a year now, he has been quite active people working on the organizational his collected speeches. No dollar figure yet in making political appearances around the project, Hightower says. on Richards's deal. state. State Senator Hugh Parmer of Fort Hightower says he prefers the word Worth is rumored to be interested. Both "alliance" to describe the new political Bryant and Parmer have progressive records effort. "Coalition," he says, "is sort of a and both are known to have ambitions for Sixties type of word and conjures up a lot higher offices. Another possibility is state of failure, frankly." He says alliance "has Senator Ted Lyon of Rockwall. Lyon that old-time populist tinge to it." emerged from his quadrennial reelection fight with right-winger Richard Harvey of v" WHEN AG Commissioner High- Tyler in pretty good shape and says he thinks tower announced his plans in January to he would have a chance at beating Gramm organize the new alliance of populist because he (Lyon) could cast himself as a politicians and organizations, he mentioned moderate to conservative Democrat and plans to set up a policy center that would avoid being liberal-baited. The best hope develop populist-inspired proposals for of conservative Democrats, Lt. Gov. Bill government. Some observers may have Hobby, is still saying nothing publicly to wondered what became of the Populist indicate that he will run against Gramm, Forum, a Washington-based outfit that was or even that he thinks the race can be won organized a few years ago to proselytize for by a Democrat — any Democrat. new populist causes. Hightower says the forum has split into two groups, partly vf EXCEPT. . . Except Henry. Many because of disagreements over political observers are still holding up San Antonio strategy. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin wanted mayor Henry Cisneros as the only Democrat the group to focus on promoting populist who could beat Gramm. His name recogni- tion is much higher than Bryant's, Parmer's, ideas and philosophy, while Hightower ALAN POGUE envisioned a group that would be more or Lyon's. And there is wide disagreement Ann Richards involved with organizing and supporting about how much or how little revelations candidates for office, he says. Harkin is now about Henry C.'s marital infidelities have involved with an offshoot called the Populist // AS STRATEGIES abound among hurt his political standing. Caucus, and Hightower is part of a group Democrats as to who would be best suited All of San Antonio and much of the state called Democrats 2000, which includes to run against Senator Phil Gramm in the watched with interest January 21 to see how Congressmen Kent Conrad of North Dakota wake of Ag Commissioner Jim Hightower's voters in the Alamo city would decide the and Lane Evans of Illinois. On the local decision to get out of the race, Hightower long-running controversy over whether to level, Hightower sees the need for a new himself says that he thinks Ann Richards build a domed sports stadium. Cisneros was policy center, especially since the Texas would be a stronger candidate than Attorney solidly behind it, along with labor and the Center for Policy Studies, which once General Jim Mattox. Richards has a better city's black leaders, while the strong performed much-needed research on pesti- national fundraising base, and since her community groups, such as Citizens Organ- cides and other chemical and toxic waste appearance as keynote speaker at the ized for Public Service, teamed up with issues, has been decimated by dissension- Democratic National Convention has be- conservative anti-tax leader C.L. Stubbs to related departures. come nearly a "Hollywood star," High- oppose it. The proposal called for a half- tower says. Meanwhile, campaign contribu- cent increase in the city's sales tax to fund // HIGHTOWER also has plans to tion reports filed in January revealed that the stadium, which opponents said was an THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 13 inequitable means of financing. But the Wing turns / Its lonely eyes to you. .. . stadium proposal passed at the polls. Whereupon Cisneros was quoted in the local V MORE internationalism down at the press saying that the city has taken "a giant legislature. . . . South Texas Rep. Larry step onto the national stage. We have Warner distributed a press release in January fulfilled our appointment with destiny." that began: "State Representative Larry And whereupon people began wondering Warner has filed a bill calling for human again about Cisneros's own appointments rights around the world." with destiny. Had his political career been revived? He had recently suggested, accord- ing to the San Antonio press, that he might reconsider his withdrawal from politics and v THE BUSH administration's idiotic run again for reelection as mayor. Former proposal to put a tax on depositors in order mayor Lila Cockrell, who is already raising to bail out the nation's mismanaged Savings money for this spring's mayoral race, and Loans apparently doesn't stand a chance frowned upon the prospect. And then of surviving in Congress, but it was almost Cisneros again announced that he is staying worth it for all the good quotes it generated. out. Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz, a member But what about a Senate race in 1990? of the Senate Banking Committee, declared, Will his reputation be on the rise again by "I will only vote for this idea posthumously, then? Some Democrats are saying that, and then only if someone casts my proxy whether polls are registering it or not, there against my direct wishes as expressed in my last will and testament." is likely to be a strong judgement against LOUIS DUBOSE Cisneros, among women and Catholics George W. Bush especially, when it comes to the discrepancy V OUR REPORT in last issue's between the family-man-image he was v AN EARLY contender for Bonehead Political Intelligence that described Wash- cultivating and the private affair he was of the Year is Al Edwards, the state Rep. ington attorney Judith Bagley as "one of hiding. from Houston. Edwards became an object five people in Texas who actually got along of derision only three weeks into the new with Dukakis's Campaign '88 director Tom V REPUBLICANS are jockeying for session of the legislature when he announced Cosgrove" triggered a phone call from a position, as the 1990 governor's race that he was drafting legislation that would skeptical Campaign '88 worker. Surely we continues to be the leading speculation game punish convicted drug dealers by cutting off were exaggerating about the Cosgrove in political circles. As some Republicans their fingers. Edwards told reporters that situation, he said. At which point he began to wonder aloud what possible charm his legislation would provide for the tip of demanded to know who were the other four there could be to the spectre of Secretary the little finger to be cut off on a drug- people who allegedly got along with of State Jack Rains running for governor, pusher's first offense and then, for each Dukakis's controversial campaign director. Rains himself made it 95 percent official subsequent offense, an entire finger would He charged us with inflating our figures. We that he would go through with it. During be lost. Edwards, a legislator in good admitted we lacked documentation to back inauguration week in Washington, he told standing with the Dim Bulb Club, gained up our claim. Dallas Morning News reporters, "If you ask statewide news coverage with his finger me today, I'd say the odds are about 95 proposal. But the winner, hands down, for percent I'm going to make a race." Rains best lead paragraph among the news stories V NOTING THAT J. Livingston Kosberg has resigned from the board of the said he was saying so to "counter those who is Andrew Kirtzman of the Houston Post, are spreading rumors that I am not a Department of Human Services, Dallas who put the Edwards story in its interna- Morning News candidate." tional perspective. His piece began: columnists Carolyn Barta and Scott Bennett recorded with some "Taking a cue from the Ayatollah disapproval Gov. Clements's comment on V THE MORE interesting candidate to Khomeini, a state representative from the state's media would probably be George Houston wants to pass a law to cut off the Kosberg's departure. Kosberg, a Houston W. Bush, the President's son. Bush admits fingers of drug dealers and heavy users." savings and loan executive who has been a consistent advocate for more humane he's looking at the race, and it's clear that That pretty much says it all. social spending policies, said in his resigna- he's charmed many in the Republican Or does it? The next day, the Post tion letter that he hopes state leaders will establishment in his travels on behalf of reported that Edwards had recently written "respond more aggressively to the desires Bush the elder. a letter urging probation for a convicted of our populace to be a caring society." Lately, Bush Junior has been in the dealer of crack and cocaine. Hmm .. . headlines for trying to put together a deal Clements's comment to reporters: "Well, he probably had that same philosophy in to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team, V ON THE BRIGHT SIDE: the which is traditionally under right-wing his savings and loans, too." Barta & Dallas Morning News editorial page Bennett's description of Clements's re- ownership. Financially troubled business- continues its long march out of darkness. sponse: "tacky. " man Mad Eddie Chiles has been trying to News editorial writers considered the budget unload the Rangers. priorities facing the 71st legislature, But even beyond the baseball world, Bush including necessary spending on public v FORMER HOUSTON has been "making systematic overtures to education, health and human services, and mayor Fred Hofheinz continues to keep hope the Republican right," according to former state employees' salaries, and came up with alive for Houstonians looking for a candi- Observer editor Kaye Northcott, who is now this startling conclusion: "At this point, date to unseat Mayor Kathy Whitmire. writing a political column for the Fort Worth current revenue projections are just not Hofheinz recently added another law partner Star-Telegram, in addition to her reporting enough to build the state's future. to his firm and suggested that his reasons duties. Northcott also notes that Railroad Investment needs must be met." for doing so should be obvious. He has also Commissioner Kent Hance and oilman T. And now to the tune of Simon and picked up the support of Houston Congress- Boone Pickens cannot be ruled out of a run Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson": Where have man Mickey Leland who told the Houston for the governor's mansion. you gone / William Murchison? / The Right Chronicle that he would support Hofheinz 14 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 in a Hofheinz/Whitmire race. Leland de- on vacation in London in 1987. Rumors now scribes Hofheinz as the former elected have Lalor working for the Red Cross in official who "really gave black people a Canada, living in England, or traveling in stake in city government and initiated South America. In February of 1988, opportunities that before had seemed impos- according to the Houston Chronicle, Lalor sible to reach. was spotted reading a newspaper in the Information for coffee shop of one of his favorite New York vi THE STRANGEST name floated hotels. Half a dozen Lance sightings Historians, out to be a potential Democratic candidate followed. But whether Lalor was seen to take on Senator Phil Gramm in 1990 has jogging in Memorial Park, driving his blue Researchers, got to be former lieutenant governor Ben Jaguar through Houston, or eating in a Barnes who last held office during an earlier Houston restaurant, none of the sightings Nostalgia Buffs, cycle of banking and insurance scandals. were confirmed. Lalor has not yet been Barnes left office after the 1971 Sharpstown mentioned as a possible Democratic candi- & Observer Fans banking scandal that ended or altered the date to run against Phil Gramm. careers of a dozen other elected officials, including then Speaker of the House Gus vf OLD LEGISLATORS don't ex- Mutscher who survived an indictment and actly fade away. They generally fade into Bound Volumes: The 1987 bound conviction and now serves as County Judge the lobby — or are appointed to government issues of The Texas Observer are now in Washington County. Barnes's possible boards. Foster Whaley, the former represen- candidacy is mentioned in the Quorum ready. In maroon, washable binding, tative from Pampa who last session sug- the price is $30. Also available at $30 Report, a biweekly political newsletter. Of gested that the state use stock knives to course, Barnes could run a "never been each are volumes of the Observer for castrate sexual offenders, is now after a seat each year since 1963. indicted" campaign. on the Texas Department of Corrections board. A petition promoting Whaley's //I PERHAPS THE ONLY political appointment to TDC was acceptable to many news item stranger than the Barnes candi- of Whaley's former colleagues, including dacy for Senate are the reports of sightings Port Isabel Democrat Larry Warner, who Cumulative Index: The clothbound of Lance Lalor, the former Harris County proposed a slight change in the language cumulative edition of The Texas state representative and City of Houston of the petition. Warner would gladly sign Observer Index covering the years comptroller who pleaded guilty to using a on to support Whaley's "confinement" in 1954-1970 may be obtained for $20. stolen American Express Gold Card while a TDC facility, he said. The 1971-1981 cumulative edition is $55 (clothbound) or $30 (soft bound).

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THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 15 (Advertisement) A Public Service Message from the American Income Life Insurance Co.—Waco, Texas—Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer One Nation, Under God

BY RALPH L. LYNN ourselves. We human beings are so limited that we impute to the lower animals as well as to God our own human characteristics. Some of you know that a large black cat, Excerpts from a lecture given at an interdenominational service Cyclone by name, dominated our household for nearly 18 years; held at Waco's Temple Rodef Sholom in November 1988. he seemed to be a member of the family but did he really have a sense of humor and even a conscience as my wife When Rabbi Podet invited me to be your guest, he suggested insisted? May God forgive us our humanity! We just do not that you were thinking about "one nation under God" as a wish to let God be God and cats be cats. subject for consideration. At first, I thought to proceed in To turn a Biblical phrase around, each of us creates God perfectly orthodox — and therefore uncharacteristic — fashion in his own individual image. There are as many Gods as there by beginning with the first word in the topic, but as I tinkered are people. If it is true that we can think of God only in human more, the whole thing began to seem so utterly dependent upon terms, we should certainly do our utmost to impute to God what I did with God that I concluded I must begin not with not just our own individual traits but refinements of the most the first but with the last word in the topic. exalted human characteristics in our experience. But in unhappy My general thesis is that many, if not most, of our problems fact, few of us are self-critical enough to look beyond our own may stem from our inadequate concepts of God. If this is true, prejudices, hatreds, fears, and desires in creating our image we need to think about some of the popular concepts of God of God. And a collective of individuals, a nation for examples, and about how we acquire our ideas about God with particular does the same sort of thing. Frighteningly, the God the nation emphasis upon how we might develop more adequate ideas creates for itself is likely to be representative of the lowest about the Deity. common denominator — and that is pretty low. Before I tackle these problems, I think I need to talk a bit Thus, it is not surprising that the God in the minds of the about what seems to me to be significant differences between Hebrews of the Kings and Chronicles era told them to do what know and knowledge on the one hand and faith and belief on they dearly loved doing — that is, killing men, women, children, the other. and livestock of their enemies. Perhaps you have wondered why I use the expression, I would like to think that the God in our heads in this more adequate concepts of God, rather than accurate concepts of enlightened age is more civilized than that. Yet, General God. I have avoided adjectives like accurate on the ground Westmoreland, when asked if he was bothered by casualties that God, if God is, is quite unknowable to human beings. We resulting from the indiscriminate bombing and shelling in must all, I think, whether conscious and confessed or not, be Vietnam, replied: "Yes, it is a problem but it does deprive the agnostics in this area. Because we are finite, we cannot escape enemy of the civilian population." It seems that we have our ignorance of the Infinite. progress yet to make. You may have noticed that I have the habit of saying God, Our concept of God is crucial because our concept of God if God is. Please do not be put off by the expression. I think determines the place we assign not only to the nation but to the difference between knowledge on the one hand and faith every other subject. and belief on the other is crucial. It seems to me that we should One's concept of God seems, even, to determine how one use know and knowledge only to indicate what we learn by interprets the Scripture. Frankly, I do not know of a better way of the five senses; we should reserve belief and faith for standard for interpreting the Scripture; indeed, I am not sure matters which seem to us to be true but which we cannot that, in practice, there is any other standard. I will readily agree examine by way of the five senses. It seems to me that this that knowledge of the appropriate cultural history and the has to be true since the finite can know nothing of the Infinite.. languages is desirable in an interpreter. Many of you will already When God identified himself in giving Moses directions about have supplied another qualification: the guidance of the Holy freeing his people from Egypt, God himself seems to have found Spirit. My problem with all of these qualifications is that students it necessary to resort to cryptic language. God identified himself so qualified emerge with vastly different views of the Scripture to Moses by saying, "I am that I am." It seems we must come and of God. In my own Baptist communion, we have, for to terms with the apparent fact that God is the "Wholly Other" example, Dr. Criswell of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. He as some theologian has called him. has university and seminary degrees and he studies the Bible If you will reflect, perhaps you will agree that if we could assiduously with, he judges, the guidance of the Holy Spirit. know anything about divine matters in the scientific, five senses He even maintains seriously that anybody who studies the Bible sense, we would be reducing the Infinite to the finite, we would in this fashion will emerge with ideas which exactly duplicate be reducing God to human proportions, and we would be his. reducing religion to science. We would, therefore, be destroying But his God actually approved the most murderous religion. depredations of the ancient Hebrews against their neighbors. So — to sum up this particular argument: it seems to me His God also planted convincing evidence of evolution in every that the intelligently religious person — the person of real faith rock and rill merely to test the faith of the believers that God — must consciously believe, not with, but against any evidence created the universe in six days of 24 modern hours each in he finds convincing. If you go with the evidence you find 6004 B.C. — I would say, on Friday the 13th. Such a God, convincing, you are probably — aware or not — in the science in my view, is too appallingly devious to be worthy of respect, business and not in the religion business at all. In religion, faith, much less of worship. not knowledge, is requisite. Because the finite cannot know Probably the creationist view has so wide an appeal because the Infinite, it seems to me that all believers must be agnostics. we are so incurably anthropomorphic. After all, when we wish Personally, I choose to be a believing agnostic. I have chosen to make something, we devise a plan and then we make the to remain within the Hebraic-Christian tradition. More accurately, object with our hands. We do not — perhaps we cannot — I choose every day anew to remain within that tradition. I am even consider with any understanding that God could or would not unlike that centurion who confessed to Jesus: "Lord, I just think the universe and its entire, multitudinous evolutionary believe; help thou my unbelief." For this lack of an uncritical, development into being. Since we cannot ourselves think things unqualified faith, I comfort myself with the thought that Jesus into being, we naturally try to limit God to our own limited seemed pleased with the centurion's reply. capabilities. I suspect that human beings cannot possibly have any but I suggested a bit earlier that since we are inescapably anthropomorphic ideas about God. This word of awesome length anthropomorphic, we should, at least, impute to God only the means only that our ideas about God are reflections of most exalted human characteristics in our experience. So, in

16 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 (Advertisement)

A Public Service Message trom the American Income Life Insurance Co.—Waco, Texas—Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief 5xecutive Officer

order to arrive at a more adequate concept of God, we must mind and body — perfect recruits for a permanent underclass. improve and enlarge our experiences. Unable to read and write — or even to speak — with any facility, I do not know any better way to improve and enlarge our they are unable to lift themselves out of this underclass. Millions experiences than to associate with studious and thoughtful grow to adulthood without ever having had regular employment. people. So, true to my profession, I must say that it is only These people, of course, have all of the usual human hopes in reading that we can associate with the best minds of all and fears and drives but they have no legitimate means of times and places. Also, true to my profession, I must say that satisfying them. Since they are aware that they are outcasts we ought to be far enough advanced deliberately to read authors of society, we should not be surprised that they so often turn with whom we know we will disagree. to vandalism and crime. Some will already have thought that the best way to develop The most popular solution to the problem seems to be police a more adequate concept of God is by reading the Bible. I repression. But it seems to me that ministers should take the do not dispute this but I cannot forget that many people who lead in working for more constructive solutions. There are quote the Bible by the yard and have family prayer four times precedents. Not even Karl Marx denounced the exploitation a day have the most barbarous concepts of God. I. suppose of the poor more scathingly than the prophet Amos. And I it is only fair that the horrors I cite come from Baptists. Some suspect that the poor who heard Jesus gladly were not avid of you may have seen on the TV show 20/20 the story about for one-way tickets through the pearly gates. that minister in Louisiana who maintains a school for troubled Some of us like to say that we have thrown a lot of money teenagers. He preaches hellfire and brimstone replete with proof at these problems. In sober fact, we have thrown money at texts; he also beats the kids literally black and blue as the people, not at problems. We have thrown money at people as pictures showed — and he is proud of his work! the ancient tyrants, contemptuously and in fear, tossed coins I have emphasized that it seems to me that faith is paramount to the rabble gathered to watch a victory parade. We have in religion. But please do not think that I rule reason out of thrown money at people because we have been too selfish, the life of faith. We tend to attribute the exaltation of reason too prejudiced against them, and too contemptuous of them and logic to the Greeks but I suspect that the ancient Hebrews to take the time to analyze their problems, to understand them, also exercised their minds although their cultural orientation and then to make the changes in our institutions which would led them to camouflage it. enable people of this underclass to make places for themselves I suspect, for example, that Abraham used his reason when in society. he was on the point of killing his son as an offering to God. We now come to the preposition: under. We cannot quite Perhaps he reasoned that he loved his son too much to harm separate it from its follower, God, although we can easily him and that God must love human beings with immeasurably separate God from the preposition. greater love. Perhaps we should remind ourselves here that church Perhaps, also, Hosea used his mind when he recognized membership is higher now among us than in earlier times. a poor, bedraggled, crumpled cabbage leaf of a woman at the Moreover, the general level of ethical conduct is probably higher slave market as his wife who had wronged him. Realizing that now than in earlier times. he still loved her, he bought. her and restored her to her former Thus, if "under God" means obeying God's will, we may position as his honored wife. Then, I suspect, it dawned on well be doing better than earlier generations. Certainly any talk him that if he could so exercise love and mercy that God must about going back to the good old days is utter nonsense. be even more forgiving, more loving, and more merciful. But I fear that a self-righteous complacency which offends I cannot abandon this line of thought without reflecting that thoughtful people around the world is often dominant in our the Hebrews carried captive to Babylon were surprised to minds when we use the expression, "under God." This is not discover that God was as real there as ever he had been in new. In the negotiations resulting in the Treaty of Versailles the Promised Land. And thus monotheism flowered. after World War I, our allies complained that Woodrow Wilson So now, at long last, I come to consider the final part of "lectured all mankind from a high moral plateau where he the slogan. walked alone with God." And our current president has often Given the view of God presented, you will, quite correctly, referred to the United States as the last best hope of mankind. expect me to say that it seems to me — and without any watering It is enough to make one weep. down of either thanksgiving for our nation or our devotion to Before I abandon this discussion, I need to make two more it — that we should think of the United States as only one comments. God may not have any favorites among people or of the more than 100 nations in the world. People of the Hebraic- nations. After a lifetime of looking at the record, I tend to think Christian tradition, it seems to me, must be loyal not just each that the general level of ethical conduct varies little without to his own nation, but each to the whole world. We have just regard to time or place or religious belief. I judge that Christian emerged from an inexcusably long and inexcusably juvenile people have shot each other up and exploited the weak as presidential election. Any bitter divisions resulting from such often and as ruthlessly as any of Kipling's "lesser breeds without contests are as unfortunate as they are unnecessary. But any the law." Perhaps God judges all of us, individually and divisions among us resulting from political, religious, or other collectively, according to our opportunities. differences are probably not dangerous to our political unity The other comment is that whether we acknowledge it or so long as the adherents of the various groups are scattered like it or not, the United States and all other nations are, in randomly from East to West and from North to South. fact, under God. If God is, then all of us are under the judgment If we need not be concerned for our political unity, we do, of the Deity. It should be a sobering thought. I think, need to be concerned about a deep and probably I have suggested to you that each of us has his own concept increasing social-economic division among us. I refer, of course, of God and that we must try eternally to develop a more to the fact that about 40 million of us live in poverty, ignorance, adequate understanding of the Deity. and largely in idleness in what increasingly threatens to be a It is my own view that many of our problems in both individual permanent underclass. These millions are too apathetic and and national life stem from our inadequate notions of what God too ignorant to take advantage of the helpful services which is like. We can understand divine matters only dimly and we society provides. In our world in which medical costs are should always be aware of our own limitations. astronomical, they have no medical insurance. Pregnant women who have had no prenatal care show up by the tens of thousands Ralph L. Lynn, a self-professed "agnostic in the Hebro-Christian at public hospitals to give birth to children already stunted in tradition," is Professor Emeritus of History, Baylor University.

American Income Life Insurance Company BERNARD RAPOPORT Chairman of the Board and EXECUTIVE OFFICES: P.O. BOX 208, WACO, TEXAS 76703, 817-772-3050 Chief Executive Officer

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 17 BOOKS & THE CULTURE Chomsky: The Terrorism Within

BY BRYCE MILLIGAN

THE CULTURE OF TERRORISM with accurate information. Chomsky, all means available to block the signing of By Noam Chomsky relying on the accuracy of hindsight, the Contadora Peace Act." Accounts in the Boston: South End Press, 1988 provides us with several scenarios of recent U.S. press, reflecting administration reports 270 pages, $12.00 events — all carefully documented — in on the process, describe Nicaraguan which it becomes patently obvious that what recalcitrance as the failure of the plan. HEN LIBYA'S Colonel is reported as "news" is often not what This is foreign policy that assumes that Muammar Al-Qaddafi accuses happened, and that the U.S. government is the American public is on the other side W the United States of being the so busy rewriting the diplomatic record that of Alice's looking glass. Right becomes world's greatest practitioner of state when the record and real events are wrong becomes right at the discretion of terrorism, most citizens of the U.S. are compared, the only conclusions that can be folks who are supposed to be models of outraged. When Third World drawn will be necessarily murky. As consistency. No wonder our allies avoid representatives lambast the U.S. at the Chomsky puts it, "The factual record backing up initial U.S. pronouncements on United Nations, we are mystified. "How," evidently lacks ideological serviceability, so international events. They are not waiting we wonder, "can anyone take Qaddafi it has been replaced by a mythical for independent confirmations; they are seriously? We are such a kind and gentle reconstruction crafted to satisfy doctrinal waiting for the reality revisions sure to be nation, committed to human rights and requirements." issued from Washington. world peace. . . . Why are we so hated by A brief summary of a couple of instances these people?" of this "historical engineering" must suffice HOMSKY finds a certain element of The common opinion as expressed on here. Chomsky takes us back to the year vindictiveness in U.S. foreign policy radio talk shows and in newspaper letter 1984. Until September of that year, "the C as well, as when he follows up on columns — at least in Texas — seems to Contadora draft treaty was supported with the contradiction between U.S. words and be that the Have-nots of the world are enthusiasm by the U.S. government." action regarding the 1987 peace plan of envious of us. While that may be comforting Secretary of State Shultz called it an Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. Prior to some, it appears naive to others, aside "important step forward" and condemned to the Arias plan, U.S. aid to Costa Rica from carrying more than a touch of hubris. the Sandinistas for not embracing it. In June, had been running at about $200 million a There being at least two sides to every President Reagan had informed the year. After Arias proposed the plan, U.S. question, however, it is only fair and Congress that aid to the Contras was a aid dropped to zero. In addition, the U.S. intellectually honest that we consider the necessity to drive the Sandinistas to the ambassador to Costa Rica left and was not possibility that there is some truth bargaining table. Otherwise, Reagan said, replaced for seven months, prompting one underlying these accusations of state "a regional settlement based on the Arias aide to comment that for Washington, terrorism on the part of the Land of the Contadora principles will continue to elude "this embassy is not here for dialogue or Free. us." political development in Costa Rica. It's still Noam Chomsky is a scholar who, if In September of 1984, two things here with the aim of creating a southern nothing else, is the personification of happened. First, Shultz telegrammed front [for the Contras]." intellectual honesty. Whether the field is European foreign ministers attending a Chomsky presents dozens of examples of speculative linguistics or disconcerting meeting of the European Economic such behavior. Over and over again we see international politics, Chomsky treads Community and suggested that "no U.S. administrations favoring force over regularly where angels stop to put on their economic aid be given to Nicaragua because diplomacy, and wavering back and forth in waders. In his latest book, The Culture of of its refusal to sign the Contadora Peace support of policies that are supposed to Terrorism, Chomsky approaches this agreement." The second thing that represent the will of the government and particular question: How is it that foreign happened was that Nicaragua accepted the therefore of the people — you and me. He and domestic perceptions of the actions of Contadora draft without reservations, concludes from the documentary and the U.S. government can be so diverse? becoming the first Central American nation historical record that there is ingrained For years, the U.S. has accused to do so. Within days, the U.S. was within the foreign policy structure of the repressive regimes around the world of Big pressuring its allies to reject the Contadora United States an over-riding principle of Brother tactics, primarily of manipulating treaty; a leaked National Security Council self-interest which may be understood as a the information to which their citizens have document claimed that the effort had sort of "Fifth Freedom," that rides herd access. We, on the other hand, have taken "trumped" the Nicaraguan effort to reach over the famous four freedoms espoused by great pride in the ability of the American a diplomatic settlement. Franklin D. Roosevelt as those which the free press to provide the American public A similar sequence of events occurred in Free World would uphold against all forms 1986. Costa Rican Vice Foreign Affairs of fascism. This Fifth Freedom, writes Bryce Milligan is the editor of Vortex, a San Minister Gerardo Trejos Salas says that Chomsky, may be "understood crudely but Antonio-based literary journal. during this period, "Washington tried by with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom

18 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to in aid to countries all over the globe. responsibility, which should be obvious undertake any course of action to ensure Straightforward humanitarian aid, right? enough." But even more disturbing is the that existing privilege is protected and Who could accuse us of international conclusion that, in essence, Qaddafi and advanced." political blackmail? We must protect the other Third World leaders may be right in Such a principle requires that the right-minded forces in El Salvador or the calling the U.S. a terrorist state — even if American public be led on a bewildering peasants might have them for lunch. this is a case of the pot calling the kettle trip through terrorland, where right can be Chomsky's assertions fly in the face of black: both right and wrong, where only violence America's perception of itself as an The evidence which Chomsky presents — will achieve peace, where security resides informed and enlightened citizenry. Just and it is abundant and well documented — solely in mutually assured destruction, because we have the highest illiteracy rate leaves a very bad taste in the mouth and where cleaning up nuclear facilities only of any developed country, just because our a sinking feeling in the pit of this reviewer's becomes essential when the facilities military technical manuals have had to be stomach. Aside from the INS treaty, which endanger the effectiveness of our bombs. rewritten at a seventh-grade reading level, was surely as much Gorbachev's doing as Calling this "social pathology" a "grim just because we state our considered Ronald Reagan's, the U.S. has concluded tradition," Chomsky calls on the American opinions on world events in 30-second sound few substantial diplomatic agreements public to "have the integrity to look into bites, these things have no effect on the during the Reagan years. On the other hand, the mirror without evasion." We will not correctness of our world view. Right? we have, by many accounts, subverted quite like what we see, he tells us, but if we are Chomsky finds that such things do have a few promising peace plans. Reaganite honest, we must acknowledge a "serious an effect, concluding that we are benevolent conservatives, according to Chomsky, moral responsibility, which should be only when it is in our self-interest to be "hoped to leave a permanent stamp on obvious enough." so, and informed only to the extent that the American politics. They intended to prove Of course, all this flies in the face of administration in power will allow. These that violence pays." This is the "culture America's perception of itself as a are powerful and disturbing conclusions, of terrorism" of the book's title. It is not benevolent state. After all, we give billions which pose for us all a "serious moral someone else's culture; it is our own. ❑ Lovers in a Monochromatic World BY ROSALIND ALEXANDER

THE ASSIGNATION: Review, or they have won equally on the grown-daughter-visiting-her-aging- Stories by Joyce Carol Oates impressive literary prizes. parents-storyline: The parents have become New York: Ecco Press, 1988 "Bad Habits" — the one story that has brash, flamboyant, and unabashedly 192 pages, $16.95 not been previously seen or lauded — is romantic with the years, rather than staid a glance at the trustless marriage of a and reticent. And "Fin de Siecle" is the as sig na tion (n.) 1) an appointment for community college teacher and her poet bizarre tale of two mafiosos who strangle a meeting, especially a lover's secret husband. The narrative fits neatly into the an aging, drug-dealing, perverted physician rendezvous 2) the act of assigning collection's fascination with lovers of every and are then surprised when they confront The Random House Dictionary ilk: the old doctor's body-building niece. of the English Language, In bed that night in their drafty bedroom Often nameless, the characters in these 2nd Edition they hug in the old way, at least at first, the short story-narratives are fairly ordinary people with interesting quirks of personality O DOUBT, Joyce Carol Oates is first several minutes, laughing, breathless, like N children tickling and twining their cold feet or profession. Oates dissects their words to an excellent manipulator of the together. Then he says, You're spying on me, craft extraordinary stories — a fresh twist English language. She is an aren't you? — pinching her buttocks, her in the age of minimalist vestiges and so exquisitely adept voyeuristic writer, one breasts. She says, I would never do that. He many books that offer so little genuine who translates the potpourri of lives she has says, I love you too, but does one proposition insight. The characters' voices are crystal observed casually or closely with startling, exclude the other? clear, and sharp as a knife — or is it a jewel? succinct immediacy. Her newest collection, — to the reader's ear. We are sure that each The Assignation, is but another justifiably Although "Bad Habits" showcases of these stories is being lived out down the touted edition of the 19-book-testament to Oates's deft handling of lovers and spouses, freeway, if not next door, and sometimes her gifts. The 44 narratives in The the story is not entirely representative of it is uncomfortable to be privy to so many Assignation are short, but evocatively the collection. "Visitation Rights" is a thoughts that sound so familiar, so real. In complete and, for the most part, satisfying. rather scary look at the eerie influence one one of her freshest offerings, "Desire," an All but one have either appeared in some divorced parent can have over a child and oft-married businessman who has been form in one of an impressively eclectic list indirectly over his or her former spouse. restlessly and inexplicably lonely all his life of literary or commercial magazines still "Party" and "Stroke" are both stories of learns that the "tumor" taken from his colon committed to fiction, such as Exile dying people whose friends and family are was supposed to have been his twin. (Toronto), Playgirl, Antaeus, or Threepenny all — save one — indifferent or conniving. "Pinch" deals with a woman finding out Smiling he weighs the thing in the palm Rosalind Alexander is a freelance writer if the "Pit, or thorn" in her breast is of his hand. . . . Sometimes, staring at it, he living in Austin. malignant. "Heartland" offers a newer twist can't control his laughter — tears streak down

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 19 his face. His twin! His! Fifty-seven years later! who honestly loves both her husband and awaited Christmas dinner with his wife and Other times he's mute with grief. Sits her husband's best friend, leaves them both children, he rear-ends a car that is stopped unmoving just staring transfixed at the thing at a restaurant dinner table while she slips on the railroad tracks: in the palm of his hand that, weightless, weighs into the women's room. There she So he's sitting in the Chrysler the radio turned so much. "So this is it," he says. encounters her future self in the person of high . . . and the other driver — a tall burly an older "pretty" women who is "suddenly While more than half of the collection black man — is headed back to speak with stricken by a spasm of vomiting." The him and he rolls the window down leaning tends to bend naturally toward the feminine adulteress returns to the dinner table — if not the feminist — as the book's cover out meaning to explain politely but without explaining, "There was a sick woman in apology what happened — .. . but without Modigliani's "Portrait of Madame the ladies' room, I couldn't just leave her," a word the black man simply punches him Chechowska" suggests, Oates isn't afraid and the reader is left to consider the in the face. With a big balled fist like a rock. of handling men when the story warrants significance of her statement as declaration, Punches him so hard his head swivels with it. So, "The Abduction" and "Romance" excuse, or plea. the impact of the blow and his neck is a stalk both examine the fretting ambivalence of easily broken and there's no time for him to middle-aged men attracted to young and/or understand what has happened .. . "bad" girls. "Senorita" amplifies the S MIGHT BE EXPECTED of a infatuated interest of an affluent great and prolific contemporary Indeed, the "tall burly black man" who businessman in strippers in general, and one A American writer, Oates's lovers in comes and goes totally unexplained and such dancer in particular; we can't help but The Assignation collection are never one- unexplored in this story might remind hear how the women become more than dimensional. But then they are never from Oates's readers of her non-fiction essay on their profession through an aficionado's ethnic or minority groups, either. Blacks and Mike Tyson published in (Woman) Writer: awe. Hispanics are the only characters Oates Occasions and Opportunities (Dutton, As the collection title promises, Oates is seems hesitant to elevate beyond stereotype 1988). In the essay, Oates writes at length most interested in defining and assigning and periphery, and they are the only people of Tyson's "civilized" vs. "barbaric" code every manner of human relationship that in these stories that are not endowed with of conduct as not only the code of boxing, suggests attraction. She essentializes the the capacity or the complexity to love. Since but as a dichotomy to which ghetto youths complications of contradicting classes, few successful writers are blatantly racist who truly "love to fight" are susceptible. places, and philosophies without — at least in their fiction — Oates's sin According to Oates, Tyson is "polite," diminishing her lovers' depth. Oates has seems primarily one of omission. Of the 40- "trained, managed and surrounded by white compiled a dictionary of affairs between odd stories in this collection, only six even men," but he is also a "killer" whose skill professional women and young boys, pink- mention the minorities who crowd the cities and drive render him almost robotic and collar girls and pimps, and intellectuals who a stone's throw away from Oates's home sometimes confusingly calm and passionless prefer to act rather than think about their in Princeton, New Jersey. A black janitor's to onlookers. Tyson sounds like the model sexual liaisons. "Superstitious," "The sole interaction with the major character in for the "burly black man" of "The Assignation," and "Sentimental Encounter" "Train" is something less than fresh in that Accident." But is Oates comfortable enough all flirt with the intricacies and insanity of it is described as any class-conscious liberal with any other individuals of color to allow obsessive love and lust, but "Adulteress" might: them into her sexy stories? Apparently one more, a Barbadoan maid, who looks like is perhaps the most subtly riveting love story . . . and the black janitor humming to himself of the collection. The "pretty" adulteress, Aunt Jemima and plays with a baby doll with mop and pail casts him an ambiguous for one paragraph of "Only Son." look and calls out g'night Mr. Are black men instinctively violent or and he calls out in turn good night and is about pathetically docile servants for Oates? Are complete personal and business insurance to add the man's name but thinks better of Hispanic hookers and thieves unworthy of it, doesn't want to seem condescending. The ALICE ANDERSON AGENCY more than three lines in a story? Obviously, janitor says jovially but inscrutably doan look 808-A East 46th like a bad night out there and he says well the polite killer who is difficult to Box 4666, Austin 78765 P.O. — that's good. comprehend in this collection is Joyce Carol (512) 459-6577 Oates. Tyson has said he's in the fight game "Senorita," likewise, makes brief for the personal satisfaction, the glory, and mention of octoroon and Latino striptease the money. Oates, a comfortable Princeton artists, and "Maximum Security" casts writer of stature and its attendant wealth black men as the majority of inmates in a could only benefit from looking beyond the prison visited by a housewife who's feeling black and Hispanic folk she so obviously caged and stifled. The prison warden knows only peripherally and stereotypically. explains when asked, "That's just the way Her ethnic omissions are painfully the system works, ma'am," and the reader noticeable in The Assignation collection CARP N INN) is left to infer the woman's empathy and precisely because it is so otherwise perfect, affinity with the black inmates, who, she because the reader becomes used to and is told, talk only of getting out. delighted with interactions between a wide "Best Lodging Location for In "The Quarrel" two gay lovers are variety of characters across class and even Fishermen & Beachgoers" attacked in their home by a man who could spiritual lines. The other-than-white reader either have been "a light-skinned black" or can take little solace in the brevity of each Group Discounts a sallow-skinned Caucasian, but the central story, in the modernist detachment and character in "The Bystander" picks Julio unconventional artistic license so frequently Perez's picture decisively from the police and expertly employed by Oates, because (512) 749-5555 book of criminals. Perhaps the best story she will not risk her manipulative and potent P.O. Box 8 by which to measure Oates's intent in her pen or the authority of her crystal-clear Port Aransas, TX 78373 omission of developed minority characters voice on the exploration of those "other- is "The Accident." The story details a few than." Here's one gifted writer who would Send for Free Gulf & Bay moments in the consciousness of a man do well to arrange her own trysts with Fishing Information whose wife has left him. As the man people of color, not just those who wear anxiously drives through the ice to a long- them. ❑

20 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 SOCIAL CAUSE CALENDAR

POLLUTION CONFERENCE will be performing. Other activities IN TEXARKANA OBSERVANCES include a children's fair, dance and music Friends United for a Safe Environment February 3, 1821 • First woman workshops, and 100 artisans and (FUSE) is sponsoring the first in a series physician in U.S., Elizabeth Blackwell, craftspeople. Admission will be $8 for of national sessions emphasizing the born. one day and $12 for both. For further critical dangers of pollution. The February 6, 1919 • 32,000 strike Seattle information please contact the Southwest Texarkana Conference on Environmental shipyards, leading to citywide general Celtic Association, Jim Bratton, (214) Justice is scheduled for the weekend of work stoppage. 528-6651. February 10 through 12. Twenty February 11, 1790 • First treaty with groups from around the country have Iroquois. INTERNATIONAL LIVING committed to attend. Residents of EPA February 11, 1790 • First Anti-Slavery Summer Abroad opportunities are Region VI (Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Petition presented to Congress. available through the Experiment in Oklahoma, and New Mexico) are February 12, 1817 • Frederick International Living, a nonprofit encouraged to participate, but the Douglass, black leader and abolitionist, international education and citizen meeting is open to all. Write Ronald born. exchange organization. No matter which Burnett, President, FUSE, 1331 Hazel February 12, 1947 • First draft card of the programs to 31 countries that Street, Texarkana, Texas 75501, or call burning in the United States. participants choose, all Summer Abroad (214) 792-3736. February 12, 1909 • NAACP founded. experiences include a homestay, where February 15, 1820 • Susan B. Anthony students live as a member of a family. MAYA ANGELOU born. The Experiment has been involved in Poet, playwright, and civil rights activist February 29, 1980 • House of increasing international understanding Maya Angelou will recount her Representatives met in secret session for for more than 55 years. For further experiences and read from her work at second time since 1830 to hear testimony information about Summer Abroad Brookhaven College, Farmers Branch, on whether Nicaragua had become programs for 13-to-22 year olds contact: on Tuesday, February 28 at 8 p.m. "Cuba-like." Kat Peterson, (802) 257-7751. Contact Pamela Ice at (214) 620-4823 for ticket information. FOR FREEDOM the celebration of Black History Month. OF INFORMATION SONGS OF PEACE The first national Freedom of Sweet Honey in the Rock will perform BLACK ART IN AUSTIN Information Assembly will be held in songs of racial, social, and political Harlem Renaissance: Art of Black Dallas, February 10 and 11 struggles, Saturday, at Southern February 18, at America, an exhibition focusing on the Methodist University. The assembly will 8 p.m. in Palmer Auditorium in Austin. careers of five pioneering black offer workshops, share information, and The internationally recognized seven- American artists, opened January 14 at help FOIA groups become more effective member a cappella group's appearance the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library in in protecting and encouraging the free is part of a Peace and Justice Coalition Austin. The exhibition includes works flow of information. Media Fundraiser. Tickets are available at created not only during the 1919 through professionals, attorneys, academics, Waterloo, Gaia, Sound Exchange, and 1929 Harlem Renaissance but also fundraisers, and all interested people are Harmony House, in Austin. Sponsored throughout the careers of the artists. encouraged to attend. Contact the Texas by the Peace and Justice Education Fund There will be more than 150 paintings, Freedom of Information Foundation and KAZI radio. Call 474-5877 for more photographs, sculptures, and woodcuts. office at 400 S. Record, 6th floor, information. The show is an association of Laguna Dallas, Texas 78202, or call (214) 977- Gloria Art Museum and the LBJ Library. 6651. GLASS AND PAPER The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts WOMEN ARTISTS IN TEXAS HENRI CARTIER - BRESSON is hosting two exhibits through Women & Their Work is soliciting February 12, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, "Glass Sculpture" of proposals from women artists living in presents Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Robert Willson, and from the Vista Texas for exhibitions in the Women Early Work, 1929-1934. Series, "Works on Paper" of Barbara This exhibition & Their Work Gallery. Proposals for focuses on work of the French Elam. The Vista Series is a continuing individual, group, thematic, art, and photographer that was made in Italy, program featuring the works of living performances should be sent to Women Texas artists. France, Spain, and Mexico. While & Their Work, 1501 West 5th Street, abroad he discovered the world of the Austin, Texas 78703, or call (512) homeless, the poor, and the illicit. The BLACK VISIONARY ART 477-1064. Deadline for entries is exhibition of almost 90 black and white IN AUSTIN February 27, 1989. photographs will remain on view until Black History/Black Vision: The February 26. Visionary Image in Texas, an exhibit of DANCE A JIG six artists who are self-taught visionaries, The Seventh Annual Irish Festival will Send news of important events relying on dreams, visions, or religious be held Saturday and Sunday, March 4 three weeks in advance to: revelations for their inspirations, will run and 5, at Fair Park in Dallas. through March 19 at the Archer M. Internationally acclaimed Irish musicians The Texas Observer Huntington Gallery at the University of including the Clancy Brothers, 307 W. 7th. St. Texas campus at Austin. This exhibition Greenfields of America, Barley Bree, Austin, TX 78701 of 75 works from the early 1900s marks Rare Air, and Patrick and the Celtic Folk

THE TEXAS OBSERVER • 21 AFTERWORD You Don't Need a Weatherman

BY KENNETH WHEATCROFT- PARDUE

OME THINGS ARE difficult to predict. The weather, for instance. S Yet in Austin, where we used to live, my wife swore by a certain weatherman. But not in the way you would think. My wife was convinced he was more often wrong than right. At night as we watched him, she would remind him of what he had said the night before, and how his predictions had been proven wrong by the day. I had to admit it. While I thought my wife was taking a pet peeve for a walk on too long a leash — I mean, after all the guy just reads what the National Weather Service puts out — I knew she was right. He was more often wrong than right. Yet, in no way did this seem to deter the weatherman. Dressed fashionably and always smiling, with one of those new eager-beaver haircuts that make grown men look like what I remember Boy Scouts once looked like, he always delivered his predic- tions with the utmost confidence. A walking, talking, and ever-smiling symbol of the triumph of illusion over reality. In short, a perfect age-of-Reagan — now age-of-Bush — weatherman. But some things are easy to predict. The quadrennial post-election thrashers wrote their usual the-Democrats-nominated-some- one-too-liberal blah-blah. Perennial Wash- ington muckity-mucks like Tom Wicker opined that Bentsen would have been the better candidate. David S. Broder even contended that Bentsen in '92 was the only way for the Democrats to win. You wonder where these guys dig this stuff up. Do they even pay attention? If Dukakis had come out and admitted a week-and-a- half before the election that he really was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, and then gained ten points in the polls, their arguments might ring true. But, in fact, the GAIL WOODS exact opposite is what occurred. Also, these fledgling Bentsen backers surge outside of South Texas. I can't. One, blacks supported Dukakis overwhelm- might examine the election itself. Perhaps The states that Bentsen was supposed to ingly, but did not vote in large numbers. an extremely perceptive numbers-crunching help capture were the Southern states, In Detroit, Chicago, and the District of political scientist can find some Bentsen including the oil patch states. Did the Columbia, inner city turnout was reported Democrats win those, or did I miss to have been low. If blacks had been offered Kenneth Wheatcroft-Pardue is a writer something? a reason to vote for Dukakis, I suspect living in Victoria. For me, the election suggests three things. turnout would have been higher and a few

22 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989 Democratic victories might have been Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom, figuring out what the Democrats will possible in the closer states. Two, Bush's I have always considered Reagan to be actually do. I have only one prognostication negative campaign worked, driving people something less than a great communicator. that I am sure will come true. In a year from the polls, not to them. Low voter Often he seems unable to understand the or less, some Republican columnist will turnout generally helps Republicans and this simplest, most straightforward questions. write about how Vice-President Quayle has was the lowest turnout since 1924. Three, Left on his own he lapses into almost grown into his job and left behind all the Dukakis's early non-ideological campaign comically racist monologues — the famous early negative publicity — no matter how on competence, which included picking a welfare queen bit and his Indians-are-rich mediocre he may actually be in performing conservative running mate, was not effec- line recorded live in Russia. I guess those his duties. Then the mass media factory will tive. When running for the Presidency more were "windows of reality," when Reagan turn out the dozens of articles and news spots than competence is required. Ask Jimmy was truly himself. And, of course, if kiss- documenting how Quayle has matured. Who Carter. and-tell writers are to be believed, to call knows, he might even make it to the big- What is more interesting to me is not why Ronald Reagan a dullard insults dullards time — "Saturday Night Live." Dukakis lost, but why such an unfortunately everywhere. And one more thing. Being a media-nut weak ticket as Bush-Quayle won. They won Yet we are asked to believe that Reagan during elections has a major drawback. not by a nose, but by television. They simply is universally loved. Since countless surveys Some of the programs stink! Consider the ran the best commercials. have shown the American people rarely McLaughlin Report: ex-priest and Nixon- agree with him, that must mean that he has backer playing PBS host to mealy-mouthed INCE 1952, when Ike first used been sold to us, and sold damn well. liberals and nut-crunching conservatives. I television commercials, Republicans Let's imagine that in the future, the hate it, though I do like seeing Pat Buchanan S have won seven of ten times. Face Democrats picked Bentsen or a Bentsen- in action. Sure, Buchanan is a certifiable it: Republicans have better ad men. After clone for President. It might very well be nut, and the fact that he is considered a walking precincts in the suburbs and the a close race, but I'll put my money on the responsible spokesman for anything shows city, confronting slamming doors and Republicans. Between two conservatives, the depths to which Western Civilization has choruses of "Leave me alone," — with the the best commercials always win. sunk. But he's a true believer. ever-present idiot box in the background — As for what I believe the Democrats The liberals on the show are an embar- I understood in a very personal way how should do, I go from believing that rassment. Asked for predictions before the important that is. progressives should abandon a party that has election, they would predict who would be Consider 1976 when another very weak abandoned them, to believing — hope being on Bush's cabinet. Not one envisioned a Republican, Gerald Ford, almost beat eternal, you know — that the Democrats Dukakis victory. Certainly they were being Jimmy Carter — who was a Southern will some day admit they are liberals and sober pragmatists. But, they still haven't Democrat, I must remind all those who say fiercely go about attracting the huge pool caught on. It's not what you say, or even that that particular breed of Democrat will of disenchanted non-voters who will carry if you know what you're saying. It's how be the hope of the party in four years. them to victory. you say it, and how much fun you have And let's examine Ronald Reagan. Yet I am as bad as the weatherman at saying it. ❑

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24 • FEBRUARY 10, 1989