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" (Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Feature) Welcome back to our weekly survey of what&amp;#039;s goin&amp;#039; down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin&amp;#039; gets done and where the kings of Tyrus with their convict list are waiting in line for their geranium kiss. We begin this week in Texas where, realizing that his national political ambitions are still rotting in a ditch beside a highway somewhere north of Nashua, Governor Goodhair has decided to run the Insane Governor Posse for a while. First, he seems to trying to involve the University Of Texas football team in some kind of accessorial conduct with the various crimes that went on at Penn State. At least, I think that&amp;#039;s what&amp;#039;s going on because much of the news out of this seems to be subject to laws of logic that apply only in Texas. On Super Bowl weekend, the UT board of regents called an emergency meeting to be conducted telephonically. They were supposedly discussing a four-year-old incident where assistant football coach Major Applewhite had a sexual indiscretion with a female team manager. Senator Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, couldn&amp;#039;t understand why a meeting was necessary until her phone rang. Governor Perry&amp;#039;s chief of staff was calling. A crisis was being manufactured. Ann Bishop explained the emergency with a very disturbing sentence. &amp;quot;The regents don&amp;#039;t want this to become another Penn State situation.&amp;quot; First of all, let me say that Major Applewhite is my favorite football player name that begins with &amp;quot;Major,&amp;quot; narrowly edging out Major Ogilivie, the former Alabama running back, and the entirely-too-prosaic Major Harris, who once played quarterback at West Virginia. Second, let me say that I have absolutely no idea what Major Applewhite&amp;#039;s sexytime with a team manager in Austin has to do with child rape in Pennsylvania. The nasty dispute began over a philosophical difference on how to fund higher education. In 2003, the Aggie joke of a governor convinced the state legislature to deregulate college tuition by arguing that it would make universities compete for students and lower costs. His real reason for deregulation was a desire to cut funding to higher education, which was reduced the same year by 11 percent. In the last legislative session alone, UT was reduced $92 million by the state and began cannibalizing programs to cut corners. Colleges and universities that lost state funding had to make it up somewhere and the result was increased tuition rates. The state abdicated its responsibility to fund higher education under Perry&amp;#039;s leadership and, consequently, institutions were forced to raise tuition to make up for losses. College tuition in Texas is up 55% since Perry led the deregulation charge. (The state presently has a surplus estimated at more than $8 billion and the governor refuses to touch it for either public schools, which he reduced by $5.5 billion, or higher education.) Even the intellectually numb Perry had come to the realization he had screwed up. But he was looking for a way out and began talking about promoting a $10,000 degree and more online education, a notion pushed by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. This, of course, ignores the notion that the state&amp;#039;s constitution calls for the creation of a &amp;quot;university of the first class,&amp;quot; which means research and considerably more than just conferring degrees. But Perry had moved into political butt covering mode. Use a head fake to distract from the real problem. The 10k degree requires many college credit hours at the time of high school graduation, a couple of years in a community college, and then a very narrow choice of four year institutions to finish. The public was underwhelmed. If you&amp;#039;re keeping score at home, we have two-hopped from a horny assistant coach to Jerry Sandusky to Rick Perry&amp;#039;s transcendent ability to screw up a two-car funeral, as they say around the Eire Pub back home. Sometimes, I swear, covering politics in Texas must be like being Russell Crowe during one of his &amp;quot;episodes&amp;quot; in A Beautiful Mind, where he&amp;#039;s out in the shack filling the walls with bizarre calculations. Much simpler, then, is to understand Goodhair&amp;#039;s opposition to marriage equality, because it is simply garden variety stupid. In Texas, it is fairly clear about where this state stands on that issue,&amp;quot; Perry said when asked by reporters about the Supreme Court cases.&amp;quot;As recently as a constitutional amendment that passed - I believe, with 76 percent of the vote. The people of the state of Texas, myself included, believe marriage is between one man and one woman,&amp;quot; Perry said. He referred to a 2005 state constitutional amendment that passed 3-to-1 and prohibits the state or any political subdivision from recognizing a union between same-sex couples. And, of course, nothing has changed in the past eight years. Texans have not changed their minds on this issue in any way, and Rick Perry is still a Potential President, and not a national laughingstock. And Law And Order is still on the air. Moving north to the more sensible climes \u2014 well, not really, but play along \u2014 of Oklahoma, and courtesy of blog Special Big Poisonous Lizard correspondent Friedman Of The Plains, we find a freedom-loving local politician standing his ground against the thuggish elements of other species. &amp;quot;I shot towards them and down,&amp;quot; O&amp;#039;Neal said in a phone interview Wednesday. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t try to hit them as much as I tried to scare them away. They were coming at me. I have the right to stand my ground and defend myself and shoot that thing.&amp;quot; This, of course, will be O&amp;#039;Neal&amp;#039;s defense when the dogs file the inevitable lawsuit. I would bet something substantial that Nancy Grace already has moved into the O&amp;#039;Neal guest room. Let&amp;#039;s keep moving north to Idaho, where there is a new battle over ladyparts or, more specifically, what to call the ladyparts while speaking to students who are supposed to be learning about the ladyparts. Tim McDaniel is being investigated after a complaint was filed by a handful of parents who objected to how McDaniel taught the reproductive system, Dietrich Superintendent Neil Hollingshead said. &amp;quot;It is highly unlikely it would end with his dismissal,&amp;quot; Hollingshead said. &amp;quot;Maybe a letter of reprimand from the school board.&amp;quot; According to McDaniel, four parents were offended that he explained the biology of an orgasm and included the word &amp;quot;vagina&amp;quot; during his lesson on the human reproductive system in a tenth-grade biology course. According to a letter from the Idaho State Department of Education to McDaniel, the allegations also include that he shared confidential student files with an individual other than their parents, showed a video clip in class depicting an infection of genital herpes, taught different forms of birth control and told inappropriate jokes in class. &amp;quot;Hoo-hah,&amp;quot; would be acceptable. Also, &amp;quot;Down There,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Gateway To Jesus Babies.&amp;quot; Also, too: the whole thing&amp;#039;s Al Gore&amp;#039;s fault, anyway. According to McDaniel, the commission is also investigating a complaint that accuses him of using school property to promote a political candidate. The complaint was because he showed the climate change film &amp;quot;An Inconvenient Truth,&amp;quot; also in his science class. McDaniel said he includes the film to spark a discussion on climate change among the students. After watching the film, he asks students to write a response paper explaining their thoughts on climate change. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not looking for one answer, I just want them to be able to explain what they believe,&amp;quot; he said. There is no need for that, Mr. McDaniel. Trust me on this. Meanwhile, in Arkansas, they&amp;#039;re more concerned with doing to the state&amp;#039;s middle-class what the folks in Idaho seem to think Mr, McDaniel is teaching da yout&amp;#039; to do in health-science class. Proposals to cut Arkansas&amp;#039; income and capital gains taxes won a House panel&amp;#039;s support Tuesday, as legislative leaders say they&amp;#039;re nearing agreement on a $100 million package of reductions that may depend in part on approving an expansion of health insurance for low-income workers.The House Revenue and Taxation Committee endorsed the proposals by voice votes, sending them to the full House for consideration. They&amp;#039;re among several tax cut proposals lawmakers are considering after Republicans won control of the Legislature last year. And, of course, it wouldn&amp;#039;t be an &amp;quot;economic growth&amp;quot; package without a special kick-the-poor feature. The panel tabled a separate proposal backed by Huddleston&amp;#039;s group that would have created a state Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income Arkansans. That measure would have cost the state about $40 million a year. The panel also endorsed Carter&amp;#039;s proposal to increase the income tax exemption on capital gains of at least $5 million from 30 percent to 70 percent. It would also create a 70 percent exemption for any net capital gains relating to the sale of Arkansas property acquired after Jan. 1, 2014. The &amp;quot;race to the bottom&amp;quot; wouldn&amp;#039;t scare me quite as much if I were convinced there actually was, you know, a bottom to race to. Let&amp;#039;s move along southwest, finally, to where-the-fk-else Arizona, where one freedom-loving Tucson pol has found a Second Amendment remedy for the city&amp;#039;s crime problem.  Operating on the premise an armed neighborhood is a safer neighborhood, a group led by former mayoral candidate Shaun McClusky is raising money to purchase shotguns and provide training for anyone who lives in a mid- to high-crime neighborhood and can pass a background check. The project is part of a developing nationwide movement to see if more guns really do translate into less crime. McClusky said he&amp;#039;s bringing the program to Tucson because the City Council has failed to properly fund the Police Department, leaving many residents easy targets for criminals. &amp;quot;We need to take back our city, and it needs to come back to the citizens and not the criminals,&amp;quot; McClusky said. &amp;quot;Right now, the criminal element is winning.&amp;quot; Over the next couple of weeks, McClusky and others will begin spreading leaflets and posting fliers in Midvale Park, Pueblo Gardens and a yet-to-be-determined midtown neighborhood to induce residents to sign up for the program. McClusky, apparently, has been entertaining local political observers for quite some time now.  It would have featured the always-entertaining Shaun McClusky battling Ron Asta (Hey! I have meat in my pants!) in the Republican primary for the chance to face former major league pitcher Pat Darcy (an independent), lawyer Jonathan Rothschild (a Democrat) and the winner of the Mary DeCamp/Dave Croteau Green Party primary in the general election. Problem is, McClusky, Asta and Darcy proved to be complete political morons by not gathering enough signatures to get on the ballot. So, the guy who can&amp;#039;t gather enough signatures to get on a ballot wants to hand out shotguns. Works for me. This is your democracy, America. Cherish it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a17988/laboratories-of-democracy-great-ideas-032813/>