Five Fringe 4
4. Its time to admit we made a mistake on Texas.
A Fringe Sermonette
It is known that matter is not evenly distributed in the universe, and that light doesn’t always go the speed of light, and gravity is not actually uniform, and now we have proof that time does not flow evenly everywhere in the universe. That proof is called Texas.
Texas is currently reviewing its textbooks; unlike many states where such decisions are local, Texas government determines what will be in textbooks. Recently they’ve attempted to pit "intelligent design," essentially "creationism", against theories of evolution. A "quasi-science," creationism insists on unknowable origins, as opposed to science which assembles facts. "Intelligent design" is essentially anti-science, while evolution as a field of study has been gathering facts for well over a hundred years and has a growing body of information.
Not content with being anti-science, Texas is considering being anti-history, too. New text books in Texas will have a decidedly right wing bias, one that ignores important facts like slavery and touts the benefits, but not the very serious social problems, of capitalism.
In addition, to hold office in Texas, you must confirm a belief in a Supreme Being. It doesn’t have to be the Christian God, it can be the Hindu God Brahman, but you have to believe in some power higher than the White House.
Ignorance and closed mindedness are deeply valued in Texas. Oddly, stupidity is not; Texas executes, without consideration, those who, in other states, are considered "mentally incompetent," giving rise to the saying "he’s dumb enough to be executed in Texas."
Indeed, Texas also highly values killing prisoners, and has the most streamlined, one-way route to death in the Unites States. Texas kills far more people than any other state, nearly 3 times as many as Virginia, the state with next highest rate, and more of them are poor or mentally challenged. A link to Texas executions is HERE. http://www.txexecutions.org/
It isn’t just that Texas is experiencing a slow-down (or even reversal) of the tendency toward the future, it’s that it is so huge that it creates a kind of black hole, sucking neighboring states backward with it.
Isn’t it time to admit we made a mistake about Texas? Clearly, the United States it belongs in passed more than a hundred years ago. Let’s do it, let’s cut Texas loose to drift on the continental plate as it drifts in time.
Before it goes, some local characters might like to jump on board.
Adios, Tejas! Adios!
Five Fringe 5
