It's been almost 180 years since the historic battle at the Alamo that led to Texas' independence from Mexico.
Another sad battle has been brewing since the Texas General Land Office took control of our No. 1 tourist attraction from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DRT). The Daughters were the sole custodians for 107 years. During that time, 30,000 artifacts, books and papers were given to or purchased by the Daughters.
In 2011, ownership of the old Spanish mission changed to state possession with the DRT continuing to handle day-to-day-operations. That arrangement ended this month when new Land Commissioner George P. Bush decided it was time to sever all ties with the group.
At issue now is the extensive library and displays that the DRT say they own but that the state is now claiming. Many of these items were donated by the Daughters' own ancestors. Now the DRT has drawn a line in the sand. They have filed suit, saying the move by the state is an unconstitutional seizure of private property.
This schism among people who love Texas and her history is unfortunate for the Alamo and Texas. Surely there can be a mediation process by an independent person or committee who can help decide which property belongs to the DRT and which is owned by the state.
Remember the Alamo!
Today's quote:
I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. ~ Alexander the Great
Monday, March 30, 2015
Saturday, March 21, 2015
FAILING SENIORS
Have members of the Texas Senate Education Committee lost their collective mind?
Senate Bill 149, which would let high school seniors who fail state tests graduate, was approved by a 28 - 2 vote and sent to the House. Texas has 28,000 students in the Class of 2015 who have failed one or more of the five state exams in U.S History, biology, Algebra 1, English 1 and English 2. Educators all across the state agree that after 12 years of education, students should be able to pass those exams. Especially considering all the time teachers spend preparing the students for those tests.
Bill 149 would allow panels made up of educators, counselors and parents to weigh factors like grades, college entrance exam scores and attendance to decide whether a student should graduate despite poor performance on state standardized tests. Do you see a possibility of bias or favoritism here?
The plan has received criticism from many alumni groups, Chambers of Commerce, the Texas Association of Business, college administrators and parents. The consensus is that if all the 2015 seniors who failed the state exams are given diplomas, Texas will have an additional 28,000 unprepared people seeking advanced learning or careers. What are their chances of success?
One can only hope that Senate Bill 149 will fail as it passes through the Texas Legislature.
Senate Bill 149, which would let high school seniors who fail state tests graduate, was approved by a 28 - 2 vote and sent to the House. Texas has 28,000 students in the Class of 2015 who have failed one or more of the five state exams in U.S History, biology, Algebra 1, English 1 and English 2. Educators all across the state agree that after 12 years of education, students should be able to pass those exams. Especially considering all the time teachers spend preparing the students for those tests.
Bill 149 would allow panels made up of educators, counselors and parents to weigh factors like grades, college entrance exam scores and attendance to decide whether a student should graduate despite poor performance on state standardized tests. Do you see a possibility of bias or favoritism here?
The plan has received criticism from many alumni groups, Chambers of Commerce, the Texas Association of Business, college administrators and parents. The consensus is that if all the 2015 seniors who failed the state exams are given diplomas, Texas will have an additional 28,000 unprepared people seeking advanced learning or careers. What are their chances of success?
One can only hope that Senate Bill 149 will fail as it passes through the Texas Legislature.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
SAVE THE MONARCHS
Imagine driving the interstate highway between Texas and Canada without plenty of restaurants and gas stations along the way.
That's the dilemma facing the monarch butterfly during its annual migration from Mexico to Canada and back again. Sources of food and rest stops in the natural environment are becoming scarce. The number of monarchs in north America is shrinking at an alarming rate.
Many groups, some in my home county, are trying to reverse the decline by establishing butterfly gardens and Monarch Way-stations to help the butterflies feed and reproduce along their journey. In my area, two Way-stations have been certified that include native milkweek, nectar plants, flowers with red blooms and other resources vital to the monarchs. Six more Way-stations are in the works and will be completed and certified this year.
All across the U.S. along the migration route, master gardeners and conservationists are conducting seminars and programs to inform and educate local residents about butterfly gardens, a butterfly habitat and a Monarch Way-station. Many such facilities are needed to save the monarchs from extinction.
We, too, can make a difference. If all of us dedicated just one flower bed or patio planter to plants benefiting this colorful insect, we would receive satisfaction and pleasure.
A world without monarchs would be a drab and dull place.
That's the dilemma facing the monarch butterfly during its annual migration from Mexico to Canada and back again. Sources of food and rest stops in the natural environment are becoming scarce. The number of monarchs in north America is shrinking at an alarming rate.
Many groups, some in my home county, are trying to reverse the decline by establishing butterfly gardens and Monarch Way-stations to help the butterflies feed and reproduce along their journey. In my area, two Way-stations have been certified that include native milkweek, nectar plants, flowers with red blooms and other resources vital to the monarchs. Six more Way-stations are in the works and will be completed and certified this year.
All across the U.S. along the migration route, master gardeners and conservationists are conducting seminars and programs to inform and educate local residents about butterfly gardens, a butterfly habitat and a Monarch Way-station. Many such facilities are needed to save the monarchs from extinction.
We, too, can make a difference. If all of us dedicated just one flower bed or patio planter to plants benefiting this colorful insect, we would receive satisfaction and pleasure.
A world without monarchs would be a drab and dull place.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
OH, NO! SAY IT ISN'T SO!
The world is running out of chocolate. How will I survive?
As a woman who believes chocolate is the third major food group, preceded only by meat and potatoes, this news is devastating.
The shortage is caused by many factors, one of which is that we are eating too much chocolate. Last year we ate more cocoa than we produced -- 70,000 metric tons to be exact. In five years the shortfall will increase to one million metric tons. By 2030: two million
metric tons.
Like all goods, chocolate is subject to the law of supply and demand, and the demand is skyrocketing in places recently introduced to chocolate. Blame the Chinese.
Chocolate sales in China are expected to grow almost 60 percent in the next four years. People in the Asia-Pacific region are eating twice as much chocolate as a decade ago. Even that amount does not match Western Europe's consumption.
Another problem is that disease has destroyed all the cocoa trees in Costa Rica. An additional blow is that global warming is wreaking havoc with rainfall in West Africa.
I'm trying to do my part to conserve this resource. I eat only milk chocolate which contains about 10 percent cocoa and ignore dark chocolate which contains up to 70 percent.
Industry insiders and commodity brokers predict scarcity and higher prices will soon begin.
They also fear hoarding.
I really don't like standing in line or paying a higher price. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
I cannot, under any circumstances, give up chocolate.
Quote of the day: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ~ Aristotle
As a woman who believes chocolate is the third major food group, preceded only by meat and potatoes, this news is devastating.
The shortage is caused by many factors, one of which is that we are eating too much chocolate. Last year we ate more cocoa than we produced -- 70,000 metric tons to be exact. In five years the shortfall will increase to one million metric tons. By 2030: two million
metric tons.
Like all goods, chocolate is subject to the law of supply and demand, and the demand is skyrocketing in places recently introduced to chocolate. Blame the Chinese.
Chocolate sales in China are expected to grow almost 60 percent in the next four years. People in the Asia-Pacific region are eating twice as much chocolate as a decade ago. Even that amount does not match Western Europe's consumption.
Another problem is that disease has destroyed all the cocoa trees in Costa Rica. An additional blow is that global warming is wreaking havoc with rainfall in West Africa.
I'm trying to do my part to conserve this resource. I eat only milk chocolate which contains about 10 percent cocoa and ignore dark chocolate which contains up to 70 percent.
Industry insiders and commodity brokers predict scarcity and higher prices will soon begin.
They also fear hoarding.
I really don't like standing in line or paying a higher price. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
I cannot, under any circumstances, give up chocolate.
Quote of the day: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ~ Aristotle
Saturday, March 7, 2015
WHAT A WOMAN!
Since March is National Women's History month, I've been researching notable women from the past. When I found Stagecoach Mary, I found one in a million.
Last year Mary was inducted into the Texas Trail of Fame. A bronze marker, telling her story and fashioned after a frontier marshal's badge, was placed in Fort Worth's Stockyards National Historic District. She joined people like Charles Goodnight, Quanah Parker, Fredric Remington, Zane Grey and Roy Rogers.
Mary was born a slave in Tennessee around 1832 and orphaned by age 14. She learned to read and write, and after her father was sold, her mother gave her the surname of "Fields" because that's the area of the plantation where her father worked. She never married and had no children.
At age 30, she and Dolly, her slave master's daughter, who was born within two weeks of the slave girl, went to a mission in Montana to establish schools for Native Americans. The Indians, who loved her and were in awe of her, called her "White Crow" because they said she "acts like a white woman, but has black skin like a crow."
Mary became the first African American and the second woman ever hired to deliver mail. Wells Fargo, which had the mail delivery contract, hired her at age 60. That was when she earned the nickname "Stagecoach Mary." Standing six feet tall and weighing more than 200 pounds, she could switch out a team of six horses faster than any man.
Despite the harsh Montana weather, this strong, gun-totin', cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking, swearing woman did an excellent job for Wells Fargo. Using horses and her mule, Moses, she was known as one of the most dependable mail carriers ever. When the snow was too deep for the horses, she walked in snow shoes, carrying the mail on her back.
She died in Cascade, Montana in 1914.
Stagecoach Mary Fields broke all the barriers of race, gender and age. The world needs more folks like her.
Today's quote: A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same. ~ Elbert Hubbard
Last year Mary was inducted into the Texas Trail of Fame. A bronze marker, telling her story and fashioned after a frontier marshal's badge, was placed in Fort Worth's Stockyards National Historic District. She joined people like Charles Goodnight, Quanah Parker, Fredric Remington, Zane Grey and Roy Rogers.
Mary was born a slave in Tennessee around 1832 and orphaned by age 14. She learned to read and write, and after her father was sold, her mother gave her the surname of "Fields" because that's the area of the plantation where her father worked. She never married and had no children.
At age 30, she and Dolly, her slave master's daughter, who was born within two weeks of the slave girl, went to a mission in Montana to establish schools for Native Americans. The Indians, who loved her and were in awe of her, called her "White Crow" because they said she "acts like a white woman, but has black skin like a crow."
Mary became the first African American and the second woman ever hired to deliver mail. Wells Fargo, which had the mail delivery contract, hired her at age 60. That was when she earned the nickname "Stagecoach Mary." Standing six feet tall and weighing more than 200 pounds, she could switch out a team of six horses faster than any man.
Despite the harsh Montana weather, this strong, gun-totin', cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking, swearing woman did an excellent job for Wells Fargo. Using horses and her mule, Moses, she was known as one of the most dependable mail carriers ever. When the snow was too deep for the horses, she walked in snow shoes, carrying the mail on her back.
She died in Cascade, Montana in 1914.
Stagecoach Mary Fields broke all the barriers of race, gender and age. The world needs more folks like her.
Today's quote: A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same. ~ Elbert Hubbard
Thursday, March 5, 2015
IS EVERYBODY HAPPY?
We seem to be a society obsessed with this question. We take the pursuit of happiness very seriously.
Very often a friend confides, "I'm considering divorce. I'm just not happy." More often a parent says, "All I want for my children is that they be happy." We want happiness to come in a bottle like perfume so we can just spray it on. But sometimes, we just have to wait out or wade through the sadness, anger or discontent.
Thousands of dollars are spent on counselors, psychologists and support groups as people seek to be happy, or at least content, 24/7. Publications from Good Housekeeping to The
Wall Street Journal exhort us to "be happy." Polls and surveys are conducted to see how well we are measuring up. The Gross National Happiness index is one. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being index is another.
The 2014 Gallup National test, recently released, was based on more than 176,000 phone interviews. It rated each state on five elements of well-being. Alaska was named number one. Next in line were Hawaii, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. I'm skeptical of these findings. (I thought Texas would be No. 1.) Happiness is not something we can appraise, like a house. Neither is it a goal unto itself, like loosing five pounds.
Happiness is a state of mind. Every morning when we wake up, we must choose to be happy that day.
Perhaps the question, "Are you happy" should be replaced by "How happy have you chosen to be?"
Quote of the day: Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Very often a friend confides, "I'm considering divorce. I'm just not happy." More often a parent says, "All I want for my children is that they be happy." We want happiness to come in a bottle like perfume so we can just spray it on. But sometimes, we just have to wait out or wade through the sadness, anger or discontent.
Thousands of dollars are spent on counselors, psychologists and support groups as people seek to be happy, or at least content, 24/7. Publications from Good Housekeeping to The
Wall Street Journal exhort us to "be happy." Polls and surveys are conducted to see how well we are measuring up. The Gross National Happiness index is one. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being index is another.
The 2014 Gallup National test, recently released, was based on more than 176,000 phone interviews. It rated each state on five elements of well-being. Alaska was named number one. Next in line were Hawaii, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. I'm skeptical of these findings. (I thought Texas would be No. 1.) Happiness is not something we can appraise, like a house. Neither is it a goal unto itself, like loosing five pounds.
Happiness is a state of mind. Every morning when we wake up, we must choose to be happy that day.
Perhaps the question, "Are you happy" should be replaced by "How happy have you chosen to be?"
Quote of the day: Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. ~ Abraham Lincoln
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