TOBY PETZOLD

Don Haskins, the man who led the Miners of Texas Western College over the Kentucky Wildcats for the Men’s NCAA Basketball Championship in 1966, has passed away. Both my parents knew this man in their many associations with that school. My father’s admiration for Haskins and what he accomplished was especially great. They were friends and colleagues at TWC (which soon after the championship year became the University of Texas at El Paso) and my father spoke glowingly of Haskins for the rest of his life. I myself recall sitting on the ruins of an unfinished temple on the island of Naxos in 1995 while reading a long newspaper article on Haskins and the injustice of his then-absence from one of the basketball halls of fame. It was a strange but beautiful experience to be so far away from home, yet reading about someone who had been a household name to me since before my memory.

Whenever the history of the civil rights movement in America is written, it should include somewhere in its pages some reference to what Don Haskins accomplished in an America still struggling to desegregate itself not so long ago.

Thank you, Bear, for enriching my family’s life and making Texas proud.

Here’s some crap I really disrespect (emphasis added):

Luis Vera, LULAC’s general counsel, said LULAC wants a judge to toss the results of the March 4 primary because it believes delegates weren’t allocated fairly, considering Latinos invariably support the party’s nominees. The party bases the delegates awarded within each state senatorial district on the percentage of voters who turned out and voted for the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the most recent previous general election.

A key factoid: Latino-heavy districts end up fielding fewer delegates to the national convention. Why? Turnout in those districts often drops in general elections partly because Democratic candidates in those districts face fewer serious fall races.

Vera, set to be a delegate to the state convention pledged to Sen. Hillary Clinton, said it’s possible Clinton would benefit from a change in delegate allocations. Clinton, after all, bested Sen. Barack Obama across the Texas-Mexico border region.

“Of course, it’s possible,” Vera said. “That’s inconsequential. I could care less. This is not about Hillary Clinton and this is not about Barack Obama. My loyalty is to the Latino community.”

Man, is this guy gonna have a problem in Obama’s America of post-racial transcendence or what?

I am surprised at the big number of big names I know from George Mitchell’s report. Quite a few of the detestable Yankees, I’m pleased to note, including Roger Clemens, our local hero.

I think Mitchell’s right, though: call the culprits out on it and then move on. Because this isn’t like kicking Shoeless Joe Jackson out of the majors. Jackson was one of the men who did commit the ultimate crime in baseball: throwing the World Series. But what Clemens and the others did was long-term and systemic. Everybody’s known about steroid abuse in the MLB since McGwire and Sosa’s first passionate, get-a-room quality embrace during their record-breaking season of 1998.

As regards substance abuse in professional athletics, I remarked to a female relative earlier today that the only revelation more damaging than what these have been today would have been to learn that Lance Armstrong was, as the French have long insisted, doping during his magnificent run of championships. Such news would, quite frankly, devastate this town. That’s no joke, either. It would break a lot of hearts and I hope it is never found to be true.

I’m watching Silvestre Reyes —who now represents my birthplace— standing on the floor of the House supporting the latest Democratic attempt to undermine the war powers vested in the Commander in Chief by the Constitution of the United States.

This man is a dumbass who doesn’t know enough to chair a subcommittee on tumbleweed —and yet he is somehow the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The FISA is a joke and ought to be declared unConstitutional. It is nothing more than a legal relic of the Democrats’ anti-Nixonism and a harmful hindrance to the successful prosecution of the war against Islamofascism.

Insisting upon the legitimacy and even the value of FISA plainly marks its advocates as sympathizers to the Mohammedan Menace.

Isn’t there some benefit to Rudy Giuliani with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s divorce today? I know that sounds odd, but doesn’t it somehow ameliorate Giuliani’s own political vulnerabilities in that regard? If the leader of France —a country thats moral attitudes are supposed by many to be superior to ours— can politically withstand a divorce while in office, it has to be of some help to America’s Mayor. It’s got to be some sort of recalibration.

In other news, the governor of my state has apparently reassured the Christian Right that his support of Giuliani is the best way he knows to get Roe v. Wade overturned:

Facing strident criticism from his key supporters for his endorsement of GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Rick Perry says religious conservatives need to keep their eye on their Number One goal - overturning Roe vs. Wade.

Perry says Giuliani has promised to appoint strict constructionist judges who would favor overturning the landmark decision legalizing abortion.

Oh, for Christ’s sake! Governor? Please stop talking.

The Devil was beating his wife today while I was at work. That’s always a very strange —and somehow counterintuitive— sight to behold.

“The summer of aught-seven was the damnedest one I ever saw,” they’ll say.

“I reckon so,” I’ll say.

(Last night was a farmer’s moon, my marmoset.)

Just got back from visiting with my Great Aunt Lescia up in Georgetown. She’ll be 89 Tuesday, but since I can’t be around for anything she might be doing then, I had to get my time in with her today. She’s a great old gal in the West Texas fashion and still going strong.

If I weren’t a fool, I’d get myself up there some day when it’s just me and her and chat her up about the old days with pen and paper. She’s always telling me to, but that’s one of the curses of relative youth: a tendency to invincible procrastination.

If only there were some consequence!

Jack Shafer at Slate gives us the lowdown on Lyndon Johnson and our dearly departed former First Lady. On the topic of a local radio station here in town in the Age of the New Dealers:

Once Lady Bird completed her purchase of KTBC, the “five years of delays and red tape, or delays and unfavorable rules” from the FCC that had stymied the previous owners “vanished … and slowness was replaced by speed,” according to [Robert] Caro. In short order she got permission to broadcast 24 hours a day (KTBC had been a sunrise-to-sunset station) and move it to 590 on the dial—”an uncluttered, end of the dial” where it could be heard in 38 surrounding Texas counties. It was no coincidence. Lyndon and Lady Bird recruited a new station manager, promising 10 percent of the profits, and Lyndon told him that the changes in the license restrictions that would make KTBC a moneymaker were “all set.” In 1945, the FCC OK’d KTBC’s request to quintuple its power, which cast its signal over 63 counties.

When Lyndon visited William S. Paley, president of CBS radio, and asked if KTBC could become a CBS affiliate and carry its lucrative programming, he didn’t have to spell out why the request should be granted. The radio networks feared the regulators in Washington as well as the members of Congress who regulated the regulators. KNOW in Austin had been repeatedly denied the affiliation because a San Antonio “affiliate could be heard in Austin.” CBS Director of Research Frank Stanton approved Johnson’s request.

Hee hee. Read the whole thing.

Went and stood by Mrs. Johnson’s coffin for a moment very early this morning.

Her attendants from the entrance on up were preternaturally gentle and calm, which made an impression on me. As did the dawning light and the orange glow of the Tower.

That’s hers and mine, see.

Thank you for adding to the beauty of Texas in the springtime, madame.

And you remain the essence of elegance, kindness, and charm. 

Good night, Mrs. Johnson.