Hicks Rewards Daniels’ Failure

Dallasblog.com | Sam Merten:

“Just one year after finishing 80-82, the Rangers are baseball’s worst team at 26-43, 17 1/2 games behind the Angels in the AL West. ... So it should come as no surprise to Rangers’ fans that owner Tom Hicks handed [Rangers’ second-year GM Jon] Daniels an extension today, keeping him here through the 2009 season.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

OK, so what's the deal? Some owners are starry-eyed and covet championships. Some owners wear green eye-shades and want profits. Do we need a business reporter instead of a sports reporter covering the Rangers to tell us what's really going on? Hicks can't be incompetent on all fronts, can he?

Whose Idea Was This?

Dallasblog.com | Carolyn Barta:

“Invitations have gone out to members of Congress and their families to the annual White House lawn party on Tuesday. Last year it had a Western theme. The kids had pony rides, etc. This year? It's a New Orleans theme. Does that strike anybody besides me as incongruous considering this administration's bungling of Katrina?”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Incongruous? Administration bungling? Whatever do you mean?

Don't you remember what Barbara Bush said about the poor who had lost everything and evacuated New Orleans, "This is working very well for them." This year's annual White House lawn party is a celebration of that major achievement by the Bush Administration.

Just wait until you see the blow-out party next year, when the theme will be bringing democracy to Iraq and the Middle East.

Why not secure the border?

DallasMorningViews | Rod Dreher:

“Since everybody agrees on the necessity of a secure border as part of immigration reform, but nobody agrees on anything else, why not do what we can do now? ... Build a fence, or do whatever's necessary to do what normal countries do, which is to say, establish control over who comes in and goes out of that country, and once the feds can show that we've got border security, any number of further reforms will be relatively easy to accomplish.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Why not just build a fence? Because many people believe that securing the border without comprehensive immigration reform is a fool's mission.

As long as there are employers with jobs in the US needing to be done and workers in Mexico willing to do those jobs, the two groups will find a way to get together, fence or no fence. Half of the illegal immigrants currently in the US did not come across the border illegally. They entered the country legally and overstayed their visa. A fence might force people to change how they enter the country, but it will not significantly change the total number of illegal immigrants in this country.

Instead, make it easy for temporary workers to work legally in this country and most workers will follow the rules. A fence then becomes almost as easy, cheap and non-controversial as those retractable strap crowd control barriers used in restaurants, stores, theaters, etc.

Enact comprehensive immigration reform and a simple fence becomes affordable and practical. Try to build an impregnable fence without comprehensive immigration reform and the effort becomes both hugely expensive and ineffective.

Yellow Dog Journalism

Dallasblog.com | Gina Parker Ford !:

“The lack of diversity demonstrated by both writers and the writing [in Texas Monthly] may demand that the magazine's owners bring this longstanding work into modern day journalism which demands balance, accountability, and fairness.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

You mean like the balance, accountability and fairness we get in modern day journalism like Dallas Blog?

P.S. Sorry, I forgot to include the exclamation mark Dallas Blog adds to the author's name: "Gina Parker Ford !" And I forgot to mention features like spell checking and editing that modern journalism publications like Dallas Blog do away with that old line journalism was always fussy about.

What goes around...

DallasNews Religion | Bruce Tomaso:

“Manya Brachear of the Chicago Tribune ... discusses a study by economists and psychologists at the University of Oregon who found that donating to charity 'stimulates primitive sources of pleasure in the brain.'”

Homo sapiens is a social animal whose own chances of survival are enhanced through altruism and cooperation with other members of the tribe. Thus, individuals who receive immediate gratification ("thank you", "you're welcome ... mmmm, that makes me feel good") from such behavior are more likely to survive and propagate their genes, thus strengthening the trait in the population as a whole. So, indeed, the pleasure is even more primitive than we can imagine.

Report from Rome

FrontBurner | Reid Slaughter:

“Just returned from Italy where I had drinks Tuesday with Francis Rooney, the U.S. Ambassador to The Holy See. ... [Rooney notes] there is simply no other world leader like the Pope. 'Remember that every other leader is a politician with hidden agendas and vast arrays of constituents they must answer to,' said Rooney. 'The Pope answers only to God. He is not swayed by polls or popular opinion. His is a pure voice.' What's more, on every issue, The Pope advocates not what is the politically expedient course, 'but what is moral, and right.' ”

Ed Cognoski responds:

I don't know what's worse, a US ambassador who presents this myth as fact or a reporter who repeats it. The Pope may not be subject to democratic elections, but to believe he has no agendas and no constituents is naive. The US Supreme Court doesn't have to answer to any constituency either, but there's an old saying that "The Court follows the election returns." The Pope, too, knows just how far his influence carries. There is a vast, worldwide Church that is held together not by the power of the state, not by armies and police forces, but solely by moral suasion, by appeal to authority, by promise of salvation and threat of damnation. The Church doesn't have the power to tax. It must convince millions of believers to empty their pocketbooks willingly to keep the Vatican's coffers full. It takes a skilled politician and marketer indeed to maintain the Church's power in the world. It's utter nonsense to believe that Vatican power has been maintained for two millennia by ignoring the politically expedient course.

Either Ambassador Rooney finds it in the current US national interest to suck up to the Pope or he has "gone native" and ought to be recalled by the President. My hope is the former. The FrontBurner reporter, who gave the ambassador a free pass to spread the Vatican propaganda, might be a name dropper who knows how to suck up to an ambassador to keep his connections. The reporter being associated with Park Cities People certainly suggests that explanation.

Caution: Hazardous Multiculturalism Ahead!

Dallasblog.com | Caroline Walker

Caroline Walker is busy bashing public schools and American culture in three separate Dallas Blog articles today.

In the first, she recounts an old news story out of San Diego where a new teacher claims she was given a lesson plan that included an hour for Muslim prayer, led by a teacher's aide. In Ms Walker's headline, she describes this as "Dangerous Multiculturalism". I infer that she's opposed not to school prayer, but to Muslims, but who knows. In other words, maybe she thinks Christian prayer is OK because it helps assimilate the minority into the majority religion, but Muslim prayer is not OK because it fosters multiculturalism.

If the whistleblower's account is accurate, the school program is illegal.

If what happened instead was that students on their own prayed during recess, as the school maintains, then it would be legal. In fact, it would be illegal for the school to prevent them from doing it. The ACLU would defend the students if they sought legal help.

And if what happened was a principal gave a student a microphone and that student led a prayer during morning announcements, and all this happened in Texas instead of California, the school might be complying with the recently passed legislation in Texas, legislation certainly to be tested in court.

Somehow Ms Walker thinks this whole story is an argument in favor of school vouchers, ignoring the fact that this Arabic language program was originally started as a charter school. That school failed just before the start of this school year and was reabsorbed into the public school system too late to integrate it for this year. Charter schools provide the choice that Ms Walker says she wants. In this case, it led to the "multiculturalism" she doesn't want. So which is it to be? Choice or assimilation?

In the second article, titled, "Get Your Law of Inverse Proportion Right Here!", Ms Walker tells us that Utah doesn't spend much money on public schools but still has the highest high school graduation rate. She implies it's because Utah is a voucher state.

Hmm... Utah is also a Mormon state. Maybe Texans should cut public school spending AND convert from Baptists to Mormons. Get your Law of Cause and Effect right here! Wait. Dallas Blog doesn't stock it.

For the record, Utah is not a voucher state. At least none of those 2007 high school graduates were voucher recipients. Whether Utah's just passed voucher program survives a November referendum remains to be seen.

Finally, in the third article, Ms Walker reports a poll that indicates most Texans favor school vouchers.

Utah has a statewide referendum scheduled for November on its voucher program. Polls show a small majority opposing vouchers. We'll see then what the voters themselves in that state have to say.

What's behind the curious battles that Bush picks?

Dallas Morning News | Mark Davis:

“My immigration plan is at least a four-liner:

1. Secure the borders, with a wall if necessary.
2. Deport the illegals we find, swiftly and without apology.
3. Punish businesses that knowingly hire them.
4. Formulate a tamper-proof ID to end the workplace kabuki dance that got us into this mess in the first place.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Mark Davis' plan is deceptively simple and, in the end, wanting.

1. Millions of the illegal aliens in this country did not cross the border illegally. They entered legally and overstayed the duration of their entry permit. Even a perfect fence or wall will do nothing to prevent this from continuing.
2. With 12 million illegal aliens already here, it would take a massive police roundup to make a dent in the problem. Doing so would inevitably ensnare legal residents and US citizens, too, who would be burdened with long, expensive legal processes to obtain justice. Even when such dragnets capture illegals, the resulting family disruptions, where, say, father is illegal but children are American citizens, will impose a huge human cost. Americans' perception of themselves as not only a law-abiding, but a decent society as well, will suffer, no matter how hard a heart Mr Davis' himself may possess.
3. Mr Davis' plan would deputize every hiring manager in the United States into an immigration official. Get it wrong and go to jail. So much safer to just not hire anyone with a Spanish surname, legal or not.
4. A national ID card, not just for immigrants and visitors, but for all citizens, is absolutely essential for Mr Davis' other suggestions. Traditionally, it's been the advocates of civil liberties on both the right and left who have opposed such Big Brother schemes. The potential for abuse is huge.

Note how Mr Davis himself is personally immune from most of the obvious unintended consequences of his plan. Not entirely a coincidence, I think.

In the end, Mr Davis' plan is wanting because it fails to recognize the basic economics underlying the problem. There are jobs needing to be done. There are workers willing to do them. Supply and demand are separated by an arbitrary line in the sand on the southern border of the United States. Mr Davis concentrates on creating more and more elaborate and harsh schemes to keep supply and demand out of balance. History is filled with failures where people have used government to interfere with the marketplace. Mr Davis' suggestions would have no better fate.

The Good, the Bad, and the Gay

Dallasblog.com | Scott Bennett:

“I have had too many conversations with people who could care less about anyone’s sex life, are basically liberal, but who were planning to vote for Leppert on a one-off issue related to gayness. A Dallas socialite, who raises money for DIFFA and the Turtle Creek Chorale, loathes the religious right and supports gay marriage and who knows and likes Oakley confided that she had voted early for Leppert. Why? She didn’t want headlines around the world proclaiming that Dallas had elected an openly gay Mayor. 'I don’t want us to become San Francisco,' she said.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Excuse me, but someone who would vote against a gay candidate because he is gay, or because he is openly gay, or because the press reports that he is openly gay, is not by any means "basically liberal" or someone who couldn't care less about anyone's sex life. She is a closet bigot, someone who pretends to be non-discriminatory, but only as long as gays and lesbians don't openly show their sexual orientation. Sorry, but "don't ask, don't tell" is not a liberal position. For Scott Bennett not to call her on it indicates Dallas Blog itself is guilty of the same bigoted beliefs.

Why Can't a GOP Legislature Act the Part?

Dallasblog.com | William Murchison:

“Where were the conservatives? Where were the Republicans? ... Why didn't property tax revenue caps and appraisal caps pass? ... Legislative restraints on the ability of local government to take advantage of rising home sale prices should have been a key priority for a conservative-dominated legislature.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

If local government is "taking advantage" of rising home sale prices, voters already have a proven remedy — vote the rascals out. Conservatives always claim they want less government, but when in power they are just as willing as liberals to use government power to interfere with market forces to get what they want.

In this case, it's appraisal caps. Conservatives want us to pretend that real estate prices aren't rising. Let's lock in property taxes at current appraisals. Who benefits the most? Those lucky enough to own houses in fast-growing exurbs and wealthy enclaves. Who benefits the least? The middle-class and lower who live in slowly decaying cities and older suburbs where property values rise more slowly. Where do the conservatives suggest the lost property taxes be made up? In sales taxes, a largely regressive tax that hits lower income citizens hardest.

Legislators who resisted the deceptive attempt to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class under the banner of appraisal reform deserve our praise, not our criticism.