Thanks for Correcting Those False Allegations Put Forth by the Liberal Media

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Once again, “The liberal media has put the Texas educational system under a great deal of scrutiny lately….”  This opinion is offered by Texas GOP Vote Blog.   

That blog is not anywhere I normally hang out.  In FACT, I truly try to keep politics out of my blog, but…

I was trying to find the text somewhere, anywhere online with the exact wording of the new social studies guidelines approved by the Texas State Education Agency.  If we are once again the laughing-stock (although it really is not funny) of the nation, I wanted the FACTS.  I could not find the approved guidelines in writing so tried listening to some of the actual debates online.  Took about two minutes, perhaps less, to decide I’d wait for the transcripts.

But then I found this GOP blogger ready to straighten out the biased news reports:

To help sort out fact from fiction, Jonathan Saenz from Texas Legislative Update has sent in a fact versus fiction summary….

One of Jonathan’s FACTS follows:

FALSE ALLEGATION: The State Board of Education has eliminated Tejanos who fought at the Alamo.

FACT: The Social Studies TEKS include Tejano leaders who fought at the Alamo.

In Grade 4 Texas history, Tejanos Juan Seguin, Placido Benavides and Francisco Ruiz are required to be studied as important participants in the Texas Revolution.

Benavides and Ruiz were not participants in the Battle of the Alamo (so are unrelated to the discussion of the allegation), but we’ll let this part slide because the sentence above only identifies the three as participants in the Texas Revolution.  Maybe Jonathan should have stopped (or never started) his argument there.

Lorenzo de Zavala and Jose Antonio Navarro, Tejano leaders who died at the Alamo, also are required figures in Grade 4.

Hold everything.  The GOP factoid provider needs a FACT checker before he kills off de Zavala and Navarro at the Alamo. 

I always place great trust in the Handbook of Texas Online, an incredible resource offered by the Texas State Historical Association.  Here is the Handbook’s view of history:

FACT:   Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sáenz, first vice president of the Republic of Texas:

Zavala returned to his home in poor health and relinquished his part in the affairs of state.  He resigned the vice presidency on October 17, 1836.  Less than a month later, soaked and half-frozen by a norther after his rowboat overturned in Buffalo Bayou, he developed pneumonia, to which he succumbed on November 15, 1836.

FACT:  José Antonio Navarro was one of three Tejanos signing the Texas Declaration of Independence, along with his uncle, José Francisco Ruiz and Lorenzo de Zavala.  “He died on January 13, 1871.”

I was taught seventh-grade Virginia history from a book emphasizing most masters were kind to their slaves, treating them like family members.  I do not think anyone in my class fell for it.   (FACT:  Relationships were so close that many slaves bore the children of their masters.)

Fortunately, children do not always believe what is taught them.  They are not stupid.  But what’s these two GOP bloggers’ excuse for their ignorance of Texas history?  Happy Jonathan did not tackle too many FACTS past what is taught at Grade 4.

Oh well.  Thanks, guys, for keeping us posted with well-informed FACTS.  Did not even need to reference any of the liberal media stories online to debunk your version of history.

Guess I’ll keep looking for FACTS elsewhere.

Texas, Our Texas! so wonderful so great!
Boldest and grandest, withstanding ev’ry test….

Except maybe fourth-grade history.

Note Added on May 25:  My apologies to Jonathan.  He merely attributed incorrect roles to real people.  In this morning’s San Antonio Express-News, columnist Cary Clack pointed out the hero praised most by one member of the State Board of Education is fictitious: 

Then there’s Don McLeroy of Bryan, the board’s wizard who — among many dubious proposals — wanted to evaluate the impact of reform leaders such as Upton Sinclair, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. DuBois.  Instead of citing these men and women as people who loved their country so much they devoted their lives to changing it for the better, McLeroy was concerned that their tone wasn’t as optimistic as the Belgian immigrant Jean Pierre Godet who said, “I love America for giving so many of us the right to dream a new dream.”

….  Godet is a fictional character in the 1998 book, “The Spirit of America” by the painter Thomas Kinkade.

McLeroy is so afraid of the nation’s past he’d prefer to elevate a fictional character at the expense of genuine American reformers.  Maybe he’s right and we can eliminate from our textbooks more of those insufficiently patriotic do-gooders and replace them with true American heroes like the Legion of Superheroes, led by Superman, who made no mistakes and made everyone happy except for the bad guys.

Students can learn about justice and interracial cooperation through The Lone Ranger and Tonto and be taught examples of loyalty, friendship, hard work and ingenuity through the stories of Lassie…. 

That’s what we need, the “painter of light” to illuminate Texas history.  Maybe we can incorporate his work in the math curriculum as well.  Students can be challenged to figure out how many times Tinker Bell appears in Kinkade’s eight Disney images.

Note No. 2 Added on May 25:  From David McLemore’s blog: 

After wrestling Santa Ana to the ground, Davy Crockett parted the San Antonio River and said, “Let my people go!”

Note Added on May 30:  Jonathan, read about three Tejanos who actually were at The Alamo.

Note Added on September 19:  Great John Branch cartoon in today’s San Antonio Express-News:

February 20, 2011, Update: The conservative Fordham Institute condemns revisionist history in Texas, and someone recently sent me a link to a great 2010 cartoon from The Washington Post.

Note added on March 3, 2011: Veronica Flores-Paniagua weighs in on the current state of the State Education Board.

Note added on May 27, 2011: Senate Democrats refused to rubber-stamp the governor’s nomination to lead the SBOE….

Farmers Spared Towering Oaks from the Bulldozers of Urbanization

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After an aquifer-filling 24 hours, the clouds parted just in time for this morning’s opening ceremonies for Phil Hardberger Park. 

Former Mayor Hardberger does not take the responsibility of having the 300-acre park named in his honor lightly.  Since leaving office, he has assumed the presidency of the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy; along with his wife Linda, donated $100,000 from their private foundation; found the conservancy a home in his former office space in the Milam Building; and, perhaps most importantly for the future of the park, installed the powerhouse behind several former mayors – Betty Sutherland – as the conservancy’s executive director.

Where’s the dogpark?
Bonnie Conner
Father David and Banks Smith
Pug Pining for Dogpark
Former Mayor Howard Peak, Mayor Julian Castro and Former Mayor Phil Hardberger
Marcie Ince and Parky
Anne “Parky” Alexander
Father David Garcia and Linda Hardberger
Former Mayor Howard Peak and Mayor Julian Castro

The opening provided a break from editing the edits in a book about the farmers, Max and Minnie Voelcker, who lived on the land now Hardberger Park.  Editor Lynnell Burkett and I agree about the placement of the oft-cursed comma (refer to earlier ‘ode’) surprisingly more frequently than that of the devilish colon.  

During this morning’s ceremonies, the former mayor said the parkland will endure for centuries to come, long after those who had anything to do with it are forgotten.  Already, Voelcker is far from being a household name, even for those living near the park. 

Although the Voelckers ran cattle on their land once dairy-farming became unprofitable for small operators; they always considered themselves farmers.  The stories of their farm and all the dairies that flourished in this part of San Antonio once known as Buttermilk Hill are endangered.  A May 14 editorial in the San Antonio Express-News provided evidence some of the few who know the Voelcker name now term the land’s historical usage as “ranch.”

While Max and Minnie were simple farmers, their legacy stands in the towering oak trees they carefully preserved and the foundation they endowed to support medical research of benefit to many, The Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Fund.  But, having spent months and months with their papers and photos encircling my desk, I want others to know these stubborn farmers who so tenaciously clung to their land despite the immense pressures of urbanization.

So back to the edits.  Let’s get The Last Farm Standing on Buttermilk Hill on the press, before everyone forgets that “on this farm there was a cow.”

New York Notices Our Mayor

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Zev Chavets profiled Mayor Julian Castro in the May 3 issue of The New York Times Magazine.  Among his observations:

Nothing seems to ruffle him.  Recently, after Arizona passed its tough immigration law, most Hispanic politicians reacted with fury.  Some even compared the decision to apartheid.  Castro, through a spokesman, phrased his own opposition to the decision in characteristically understated and inclusive language, saying, in part:  “Texas has long been an example of how two neighboring countries can co-exist in a mutually beneficial way for the American economy.  A law like Arizona’s would fly in the face of that history.”

And, while some of Chavets’ questions to our Mayor seemed designed to stir up racial tension where it does not exist, the Mayor did not bite:

“I consider myself Mexican-American, both parts of that phrase,” he said.  “I don’t want to turn my back on my mother’s generation.  But we are less burdened.”

The last line of the following paragraph indicates Chavets did grasp part of what makes San Antonio work:

In 2000, while Castro was still in Cambridge, the political theorist Samuel P. Huntington argued that mass immigration from Mexico poses an existential threat to the United States.  “Mexican immigration,” he wrote, “is a unique, disturbing and looming challenge to our cultural integrity, our national identity and potentially to our future as a country.”  At the heart of Huntington’s critique, which many Americans share, is the sense that Mexican-Americans will form a permanent, unassimilated superbarrio across the Southwest and elsewhere.  Julián Castro’s San Antonio is one place that counters that concern.

Will continual national attention go to the Mayor’s head?

…in San Antonio, he added, “nobody likes people with big heads.”

Note Added on June 30:  View Mayor Castro on The Colbert Report