Molly's Bench

Molly Ivins died fifteen months ago, leaving a huge vacuum in (progressive) journalism -- and in the lives of many friends. She was a fixture in her Travis Heights neighborhood. Last night, those neighbors and other friends came together to dedicate a bench in Molly's honor at Big Stacy Park. There was a nice little ceremony where several friends shared some memories of Molly. Sweetest moment: Genevieve and Peter, who met at a Final Friday party at Molly's house five years ago this month and subsequently married, being the first to smooch on the newly-dedicated bench.

The dedication was followed by a Final Friday party, like the ones Molly hosted at her home for several years. Nice group of people, from different walks of life, coming together to share stories and food. In honor of Molly, the suggested cuisine was fried chicken and champagne.

It was a balmy Austin spring evening, and clouds eventually filled the sky. Soon they were backlit with silent lightning flashes. On my way home the storm hit, sheets of rain crashing over the windshield, occasional hailstones thumping on the roof. By the time I got home the brunt of it had passed, and so I sat on my patio, listening to distant thunder and the steady ticking of rain on the leaves.

R.I.P. Lena Guerrero, 1957-2008

I Consider Myself One of the Fortunate Few

According to BusinessWeek, Texas has surpassed New York as home to the most Fortune 500 companies. Fortune magazine annually compiles the list. This year, Texas is identified as home to 58 Fortune 500 companies, compared to 55 for New York and 52 for California. No wonder Arrrggghhh-nold is begging people to come work in California.

In other news, Texas Governor Rick Perry briefly visited an emergency room last night after he strained his shoulder patting himself on the back.

Happy San Jacinto Day!

Today is the 172nd anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, where a Texian force of 700 surprised and defeated a Mexican army force of about 1,400 under the commands of Generals Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and Martin Perfecto de Cos. The battle was brief but brutal, and was followed by the massacre of many of the surrendering Mexican soldiers.

Santa Anna was captured after the battle and brought before a wounded General Sam Houston, commander of the Texian forces. Houston understood that Texas's best hope of independence lay in negotiating with Santa Anna (while holding him hostage) and so resisted his subordinates' entreaties to hang the Mexican President. Eventually, Santa Anna signed the Treaty of Velasco with the fledgling nation's new President, David Burnet. Santa Anna then traveled to Washington, D.C., where United States President Andrew Jackson confirmed his nation's interest in the independence of the new republic.

The Battle of San Jacinto changed the destinies of both the United States of America and the United States of Mexico.

Twenty Years and Counting

This weekend was my 20-year law school reunion. It was held, of course, here in Austin, with a morning's worth of continuing legal education programs. a luncheon on the lawn at the Law School, and a dinner party for the Class of '88 that evening.

It was great seeing everyone. In many ways, it felt like we'd just gone our separate ways -- friends instantly recognized each other, classroom antics and Sixth Street sorties were re-lived, and former professors were recalled and, in some cases, roasted. (There were plenty of ears burning in Austin that night.)

In other ways, it was difficult if not impossible to summarize the 20 years of ups, downs, triumphs, disappointments, and just plain changes we all have lived through. Most of my classmates knew I'd gone to work for Governor Ann Richards shortly after law school -- but that was 15 years and five jobs ago. I've also bought a house, bought a ranch, married, sold the ranch, and divorced in that time. I've also lost both parents and had other experiences that, in many ways, transformed me as much as, or more than, anything that's happened in my professional career.

And every one of my classmates has those same stories: marriage, kids, some divorces, the death of parents and friends -- even the deaths of classmates. It's hard to compress all that into a luncheon and a dinner party, but we made a nice start of it this weekend. Hopefully we'll stay in better touch in the future.

Some pictures from the alumni events this weekend are here.

Fault Line

John Langmore, who is a great photographer in spite of the fact that he went to law school with me, has a new exhibit called Fault Line: A Portait of East Austin. It is showing at the new Mexican American Cultural Center in the Rainey Street neighborhood, and is a must-see. It continues until April 27th.

John's show premiered last night, and 200+ people jammed the auditorium at the cultural center to hear John describe his inspirations and experiences in photographing the life of East Austin. He commented on and praised the generosity and hospitality of the people of the community, who let him into their stores and homes and family celebrations time and again. He talked about the unique character of that part of the city, endangered by the march of time, progress and gentrification. And he warned about the challenges of keeping the city's quality of life while allowing it to grow and welcome more people.

Speaking of must-sees, the cultural center is a destination in itself. It's a beautiful, very modern building, with thoughtful architecture and beautiful grounds. It opened last fall and everyone in Austin should visit there.

Why Hillary Should Get Out. Now.

Yesterday, Connie Schultz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, wrote a column excoriating any man who calls on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Forsaking her usual perspective, wit and thoughtfulness, she pontificates in high dudgeon:

Well, boys, you'd better sit down for this one: This is no longer the playground of your youth. The girls aren't sitting in the stands keeping score and cheering whenever you're at bat. In fact, the girls aren't girls at all anymore. We're all grown up, and we are so done with this notion that the trajectory of our lives must end at the border of your comfort zone.

Ms. Schultz was strangely silent when the pundits and poobahs of the GOP pressured Mike Huckabee to drop out. Rather than recognize their intervention for what it was -- more evidence of the blatant anti-Christianity of the Republican Party -- she chose to remain silent, apparently believing that Huckabee was being asked to drop out only because He Had No Mathematical Chance Of Winning and it was Time To Unify The Party.

Well, I have not called on Ms. Clinton to abandon her quest, and I will not do so now. It's her candidacy, and her legacy, and she can do with it what she wants. But there's a strong case that she should drop out, for her good, the good of the Democrratic Party, and the good of the country.

Numero Uno: SHE HAS NO MATHEMATICAL CHANCE OF WINNING. In her column, Ms. Schultz rails against

Male columnists, male politicians, male talking heads, male "surrogates" - all of them harrumphing that it's time for Hillary Clinton to stop it, just stop it, with all this talk of being president.
Who cares if the race is close? So what if millions of Americans believe their yet-to-be-cast votes matter? Voters, schmoters. When was this ever about them?

Of course, millions of Republican voters in her home state of Ohio believed their yet-to-be-cast votes should matter, but when the Republican primary on March 4 turned into a Snooze-a-thon, Ms. Schultz could not be heard to complain.

So here's the deal: Ms. Clinton is, in most people's estimation, irretrievably behind in states won, delegates committed and total votes cast.

The Iowa Electronic Markets, which has been much more accurate than pollsters at predicting winners and losers since 1988, has this illuminating chart:

Since January, Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the Democratic nomination have plummeted from better than 60% to less than 15%. That's a function of math and momentum, not male chauvinism.

Numero Two-O: IT'S TIME TO UNIFY THE PARTY. Every day Hillary Clinton continues her campaign -- especially the mean-spirited snarky one that's characterized the last two months -- is a good day for John McCain and the Republicans. McCain's been given a window to define himself before the Democrats can -- although, judging from his lackluster tour so far, he seems intent on blowing it.

Worse still, the attacks that McCain will use against Obama in the general election are being previewed and sharpened by the Clintons, much to the GOP's delight. Enablers like Connie Schultz will surely rejoin that it's good to Obama to face these attacks now; it strengthens him, makes him tougher, immunizes him for the general election.

Nonsense. What these attacks do is make McCain's job easier in the general election. Why should he run an ad in which he tells Americans that Obama is not ready to be Commander-in-Chief, when he can run an ad in which Hillary Clinton does his dirty work? Why should he run an ad in which he warns Americans to be afraid, very afraid, of a man whose middle name is Hussein and listens to Reverend Wright, when he can run an ad where Bill Clinton says the same things?

This is the fine mess that a continuation of the campaign, now that it's impossible for Hillary Clinton to win, will get us into.

So, Senator Clinton, stay in if you want to. It's your $109 million. But start running a positive campaign. Avoid complimenting McCain while back-handing Obama. Tell your husband not to question Obama's patriotism while praising McCain's. Contrast yourself with Obama, to be sure, but contrast both of you with the out-of-touch Republicans and their clueless standard-bearer.

UPDATE: Jonathan Chait covers much of the same ground in an essay in the New Republic.

UPDATE #2: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos fame addresses the same issue in a Newsweek essay.

Hail!

A brisk, rainy Friday morning. Thunderstorms sweeping in from the west, their gunmetal clouds blending in with the gray light of dawn. Hail mixed in with a hard rain. Xena scurrying under the bed as the precipitation cracks and pings off the metal roof of my home. Watching the white spheres fall and bounce in the grass in the faint morning light.

I Dunno. You Tell Me.

The Shell Houston Open is in, well, Houston this week. Shell is sponsoring it, no doubt hoping for some good p.r. after energy companies collectively raked in $123 billion in profits in 2007.

Anyway, here's an interesting video of golfer John Daly, captured on the driving range. You tell me what the other guy's doing.

Ann and Hillary -- Where Did Feminism Go?

When Ann Richards was running for Governor in 1990, she ran as a charismatic statewide elected official who'd successfully modernized the state Treasury. She was experienced and qualified to be Governor. But there was also a feminist subtext that was part of her critique of the other candidates, and it went something like this:

Men f*uck things up. They think with the little head, and get themselves into endless games of "¿Quien Es Mas Macho?" They view the world through blinders that obstruct theie vision of alternate experiences, personalities, and approaches to problems. They prefer confrontation over compromise and construct zero-sum solutions to problems. Our world is too complex and interdependent for that kind of leadership style to succeed anymore.

Now, Ann never got on a podium and gave that speech, but the sentiment was there: electing her as Governor would not only be history-making, but it would change the way government operated, and for the better.

History will ultimately decide whether she brought about any real change in the way things operated. However, her greatest accomplishment -- diversifying forever the numerous boards and commissions a Governor appoints -- bears some signs of that reconfiguration of social reality.

What's interesting to me is that that sort of thinking is nowhere to be found in Hillary Clinton's campaign. (Maybe it's there and, being a man, I am not admitted to the Secrets of the Sisterhood. But I've not glimpsed it or heard from it her supporters.) She's running as a woman, to be sure, but she's also running AWAY from her femininity: her balls are bigger than Barack Obama's, she wants us to know; bigger even than John McCain's. In the end, the argument for her as the first woman President is: It's time. I'm entitled. We're entitled.

In a column that In the Pink Texas pointed me towards, Ellen Goodman talks about how Old Feminism of the 1970s evolved in the New Femininism of the 1980s that Ann preached:

Women of Hillary's generation were taught to don power suits and use their shoulder pads to push open corporate doors. In the 1970s, the lessons on making it in a man's world were essentially primers on how to behave like men. As University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist Kathleen Dolan says, "They had to figure out a way to go undercover. They could only be taken seriously if they filled the male model with XX chromosomes." But the next generation of advice books urged women to do it their own way. The old stereotypes that defined women as more compassionate and collaborative were given a positive spin. They were framed and praised as women's ways of leading.

Goodman goes on to describe the next evolution of thought:

Today's shelves are still full of titles -- from "Seducing the Boys Club" to "The Girl's Guide to Being a Boss (Without Being a Bitch)" to "Enlightened Power" -- that tell us to act like a man or act like a woman. But in many ways, the transformative inspirational, collaborative, "female" style has become more attractive. Especially to a younger generation. And -- here's the rub -- especially when it is modeled by a man.

Which is why, she concludes, Barack Obama is "the Oprah candidate ... the quality circle man, the uniter-not-divider, the person who believes we can talk to anyone, even our enemies. He [has] finely honed a language usually associated with women's voices."

And is why, with precious few exceptions, no woman under 40 I know is a Hillary supporter. This is a political and, potentially, an electoral problem for Hillary Clinton, but it is also a problem for feminism.

Long Time, No See

It's been a leap year february (i.e., 29 days) since I last posted. No particular reason for the lacuna. But I had someone over the weekend tell me that he'd noticed I had not posted in a while. Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought he read my blog, so I took inspiration from the fact someone was actually paying attention.

According to Google Analytics, I had 164 visitors since March 4, an average of 5 a day. That's not bad when you consider that most blogs are read only by the blogger himself and his mom, in whose basement he still lives. Of course, there are SERIOUS blogs like Burnt Orange Report that get millions of visitors. And there are hilariously irreverent blogs like In the Pink Texas that got over 100 hits a day, albeit from the same 19 people. I am proudly one of them.

Anyway, I figure I should entertain my reading public by, well, posting every now and then. And I'll hereby make an effort to do that. So start reading, y'all!